ir vs IVA, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ir” is a verb and “IVA” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#162
“ir” frequency rank: #21,221
“IVA” frequency rank: 21383
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ir	IVA
Definition	mover-se de um lugar para outro	sigla de Imposto sobre o Valor Acrescentado

Letter map: ir vs IVA

Shared letters muted; letters that set ir and IVA apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

IVA

Part-of-speech tell for ir / IVA

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ir is averb and IVAanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21383, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ir is recorded at frequency rank #162, classified as averb. IVA is at rank #21,221, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced /ˈivɜ/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 21383, this pair ranks #48,912 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ir vs IVA

Shared letters: i. Private to "ir": r. Private to "IVA": av.

"ir" · 2 letters · shape VC · "IVA" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ir" for "IVA" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ir" is a verb and "IVA" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ir" or "IVA" show up more?

"ir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #162 in our Portuguese list, against #21,221 for "IVA". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ir" and "IVA".

Full dictionary entry for "ir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "IVA" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #48,912 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ir" and "IVA" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ino vs IVA". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #48,912 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.