litrovslivreWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#14,180
“litro” frequency rank
#535
“livre” frequency rank
14715
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature litro livre
Definition unidade de medida de volume que obedece ao sistema métrico decimal e é aceita pelo sistema internacional de unidades o que tem a faculdade de agir ou não agir

Where the eye mixes litro and livre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. litro and livre follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
litro
5 ch
livre

Why the eye confuses litro with livre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: litro is /ˈli.tɾu/ while livre is /ˈli.vɾɨ/. 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 14715, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

litro is recorded at frequency rank #14,180, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈli.tɾu/. livre is at rank #535, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈli.vɾɨ/.

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 14715, this pair ranks #57,284 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of litro vs livre

Shared letters: ilr. Private to "litro": ot. Private to "livre": ev.

"litro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "livre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • litro ← iltro · lirto · litor · litrro · littro · llitro · ltiro
  • livre ← ilvre · lirve · liver · livrre · livvre · llivre · lvire

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "litro" for "livre" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "litro" is a noun and "livre" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "litro" or "livre"?
"livre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #535 in our Portuguese list, against #14,180 for "litro". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "litro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "livre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,284 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "litro" and "livre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "listra vs litro". 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 #57,284 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