lockvsloiçaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,711
“lock” frequency rank
#36,522
“loiça” frequency rank
59233
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lock loiça
Definition fechadura produto de cerâmica para uso doméstico especialmente para o serviço de mesa e de cozinha

Where the eye mixes lock and loiça

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lock runs 4 letters (CVCC) against loiça's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
lock
5 ch
loiça

Look-alike desk: lock vs loiça

A purely visual mix-up. lock (/lɒk/) and loiça (/ˈloj.sɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59233, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lock is recorded at frequency rank #22,711, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɒk/. loiça is at rank #36,522, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈloj.sɐ/.

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 59233, this pair ranks #8,294 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lock vs loiça

Shared letters: lo. Private to "lock": ck. Private to "loiça": aiç.

"lock" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "loiça" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lock ← lcok · llock · locck · lockk · lokc · olck

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lock" and "loiça" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/lɒk/ versus /ˈloj.sɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "lock" or "loiça" show up more?
"lock" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,711 in our Portuguese list, against #36,522 for "loiça". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lock" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loiça" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,294 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lock" and "loiça" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "loch vs loiça". 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 #8,294 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