lagostavslegistaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lagosta is a noun, legista is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lagosta” is a noun and “legista” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,800
“lagosta” frequency rank
#23,385
“legista” frequency rank
53185
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lagosta legista
Definition nome genérico dado aos crustáceos decápodes marinhos da família Nephropidae, relacionados com os crustáceos de água doce conhecidos como lagostim referente ao médico legista ou ao legismo

Where the eye mixes lagosta and legista

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. lagosta and legista follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
lagosta
7 ch
legista

Look-alike desk: lagosta vs legista

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lagosta is /la.ˈgos.tɐ/ while legista is /lɨ.ˈʒiʃ.tɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lagosta is recorded at frequency rank #29,800, classified as anoun, pronounced /la.ˈgos.tɐ/. legista is at rank #23,385, tagged as anadj, pronounced /lɨ.ˈʒiʃ.tɐ/.

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 53185, this pair ranks #12,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lagosta vs legista

Shared letters: aglst. Private to "lagosta": o. Private to "legista": ei.

"lagosta" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "legista" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lagosta ← algosta · laggosta · lagosat · lagossta · lagostta · lagotsa · lagsota · laogsta
  • legista ← elgista · leggista · legisat · legissta · legistta · legitsa · legsita · leigsta

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lagosta" for "legista" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lagosta" is a noun and "legista" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "lagosta" or "legista" show up more?
"legista" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,385 in our Portuguese list, against #29,800 for "lagosta". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lagosta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "legista" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #12,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lagosta" and "legista" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lagarta vs lagosta". 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 #12,213 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