lacavslançarTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#48,502
“laca” frequency rank
#2,237
“lançar” frequency rank
50739
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laca lançar
Definition resina ou goma resinosa obtida de certas árvores no Oriente arremessar com força

Where the eye mixes laca and lançar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. laca runs 4 letters (CVCV) against lançar's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
laca
6 ch
lançar

Look-alike desk: laca vs lançar

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: laca is /ˈla.kɐ/ while lançar is /lɐ̃.ˈsaɾ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50739, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

laca is recorded at frequency rank #48,502, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈla.kɐ/. lançar is at rank #2,237, tagged as averb, pronounced /lɐ̃.ˈsaɾ/.

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 50739, this pair ranks #14,225 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of laca vs lançar

Shared letters: al. Private to "laca": c. Private to "lançar": nrç.

"laca" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lançar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • laca ← alca · laac · lacca · lcaa · llaca

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "laca" and "lançar" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "laca" is a noun and "lançar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "laca" or "lançar" show up more?
"lançar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,237 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

Eye-level mix-up between "laca" and "lançar" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "laca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lançar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,225 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laca" and "lançar" 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 #14,225 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