ligaçãovslotaçãoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,435
“ligação” frequency rank
#18,634
“lotação” frequency rank
20069
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ligação lotação
Definition ato ou efeito de ligar ato de lotar

Where the eye mixes ligação and lotação

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

7 ch
ligação
7 ch
lotação

Visual trap between ligação and lotação

A purely visual mix-up. ligação (/li.ɡɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/) and lotação (/lu.tɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20069, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ligação is recorded at frequency rank #1,435, classified as anoun, pronounced /li.ɡɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/. lotação is at rank #18,634, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lu.tɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/.

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 20069, this pair ranks #50,538 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ligação vs lotação

Shared letters: aloãç. Private to "ligação": gi. Private to "lotação": t.

"ligação" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "lotação" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ligação" for "lotação" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/li.ɡɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/ versus /lu.tɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "ligação" or "lotação"?
"ligação" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,435 in our Portuguese list, against #18,634 for "lotação". 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 "ligação" and "lotação" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ligação" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lotação" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,538 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ligação" and "lotação" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "loção vs lotação". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #50,538 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