loucovsludoConfusable pair

Quick tell: louco is a adjective, ludo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,649
“louco” frequency rank
#47,465
“ludo” frequency rank
49114
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature louco ludo
Definition que perdeu a razão, maluco, demente, vesano, amente jogo

Letter map: louco vs ludo

Shared letters muted; letters that set louco and ludo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. louco runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against ludo's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
louco
4 ch
ludo

Role in the sentence - louco and ludo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: louco is anadjective and ludoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49114, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

louco is recorded at frequency rank #1,649, classified as anadj. ludo is at rank #47,465, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlu.dɔ/.

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 49114, this pair ranks #15,970 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of louco vs ludo

Shared letters: lou. Private to "louco": c. Private to "ludo": d.

"louco" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "ludo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • louco ← llouco · locuo · loucco · louoc · luoco · oluco
  • ludo ← lduo · lludo · luddo · uldo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "louco" for "ludo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "louco" is an adjective and "ludo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "louco" or "ludo" show up more?
"louco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,649 in our Portuguese list, against #47,465 for "ludo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "louco" vs "ludo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "louco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ludo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,970 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "louco" and "ludo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lúdico vs ludo". 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 #15,970 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