lavavslavraConfusable pair

Which to use

“lava” and “lavra” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,702
“lava” frequency rank
#40,647
“lavra” frequency rank
44349
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lava lavra
Definition designação dada ao material geológico em fusão, com temperatura em geral entre os 600 °C e os 1 250 °C, que um vulcão expele durante uma erupção lavoura

Letter map: lava vs lavra

Shared letters muted; letters that set lava and lavra apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. lava runs 4 letters (CVCV) against lavra's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
lava
5 ch
lavra

Pair insight - lava / lavra

lava and lavra are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44349, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lava is recorded at frequency rank #3,702, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈla.vɐ/. lavra is at rank #40,647, tagged as anoun.

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 44349, this pair ranks #21,148 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lava vs lavra

Shared letters: alv. Private to "lava": -. Private to "lavra": r.

"lava" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lavra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lava ← alva · laav · lavva · llava · lvaa
  • lavra ← alvra · lavrra · lavvra · llavra · lvara

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lava" and "lavra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "lava" or "lavra" show up more?
"lava" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,702 in our Portuguese list, against #40,647 for "lavra". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "lava" vs "lavra" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lava" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lavra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,148 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lava" and "lavra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laca vs lavra". 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 #21,148 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