letravslistraWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,238
“letra” frequency rank
#49,564
“listra” frequency rank
51802
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature letra listra
Definition representação gráfica dos sons de um idioma risca

Letter map: letra vs listra

Shared letters muted; letters that set letra and listra apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. letra runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against listra's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
letra
6 ch
listra

Corpus notes: letra and listra

letra and listra 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 51802, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

letra is recorded at frequency rank #2,238, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈle.tɾɐ/. listra is at rank #49,564, 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 51802, this pair ranks #13,299 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of letra vs listra

Shared letters: alrt. Private to "letra": e. Private to "listra": is.

"letra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "listra" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • letra ← eltra · lerta · letar · letrra · lettra · lletra · ltera
  • listra ← ilstra · lisrta · lisstra · listrra · listtra · litsra · llistra · lsitra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "letra" and "listra" 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.
Which is more common, "letra" or "listra"?
"letra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,238 in our Portuguese list, against #49,564 for "listra". 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 "letra" and "listra".

  • Full dictionary entry for "letra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "listra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,299 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "letra" and "listra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "listra vs lisura". 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 #13,299 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