neckvsneveTell them apart

Which to use

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

#41,145
“neck” frequency rank
#3,787
“neve” frequency rank
44932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature neck neve
Definition pescoço precipitação de cristais de gelo, frequentemente agrupados em flocos e formados pelo congelamento do vapor de água que se encontra suspenso na atmosfera

Where the eye mixes neck and neve

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. neck (CVCC) and neve (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
neck
4 ch
neve

Look-alike desk: neck vs neve

A purely visual mix-up. neck (/nɛk/) and neve (/ˈnɛ.vɨ/) 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 44932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

neck is recorded at frequency rank #41,145, classified as anoun, pronounced /nɛk/. neve is at rank #3,787, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈnɛ.vɨ/.

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 44932, this pair ranks #20,501 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of neck vs neve

Shared letters: en. Private to "neck": ck. Private to "neve": v.

"neck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "neve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • neck ← enck · ncek · necck · neckk · nekc · nneck
  • neve ← enve · neev · nevve · nneve · nvee

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "neck" for "neve" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/nɛk/ versus /ˈnɛ.vɨ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "neck" vs "neve" - which ranks higher?
"neve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,787 in our Portuguese list, against #41,145 for "neck". 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 "neck" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "neve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,501 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "neck" and "neve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "neck vs nena". 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 #20,501 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