lavslacaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: la is a pronoun, laca is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“la” is a pronoun and “laca” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#163
“la” frequency rank
#48,502
“laca” frequency rank
48665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature la laca
Definition mesmo que a, utilizado em ênclise com verbos que terminam em -z, -r ou -s resina ou goma resinosa obtida de certas árvores no Oriente

Letter map: la vs laca

Shared letters muted; letters that set la and laca apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
la
4 ch
laca

Role in the sentence - la and laca

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: la is apronoun and lacaanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “la” sits inside “laca”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

la is recorded at frequency rank #163, classified as apron. laca is at rank #48,502, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈla.kɐ/.

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 48665, this pair ranks #16,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of la vs laca

Shared letters: al. Private to "la": -. Private to "laca": c.

"la" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "laca" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lacaalca · laac · lacca · lcaa · llaca

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "la" and "laca" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "la" is a pronoun and "laca" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "la" or "laca"?
"la" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #163 in our Portuguese list, against #48,502 for "laca". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "la" and "laca".

  • Full dictionary entry for "la" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "laca" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "la" and "laca" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laca vs loch". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #16,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list