nichovsnightWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#18,123
“nicho” frequency rank
#6,792
“night” frequency rank
24915
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nicho night
Definition cavidade aberta numa parede para colocação de uma imagem ou estátua noite (período entre o anoitecer e o amanhecer)

Where the eye mixes nicho and night

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
nicho
5 ch
night

Visual trap between nicho and night

A purely visual mix-up. nicho (/ˈni.ʃu/) and night (/naɪt/ Áudio (EUA)^(fonte ?)) 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 24915, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nicho is recorded at frequency rank #18,123, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈni.ʃu/. night is at rank #6,792, tagged as anoun, pronounced /naɪt/ Áudio (EUA)^(fonte ?).

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 24915, this pair ranks #44,534 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nicho vs night

Shared letters: hin. Private to "nicho": co. Private to "night": gt.

"nicho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "night" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nichoincho · nciho · niccho · nichho · nicoh · nihco · nnicho
  • nightinght · ngiht · nigght · nighht · nightt · nigth · nihgt · nnight

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nicho" for "night" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈni.ʃu/ versus /naɪt/ Áudio (EUA)^(fonte ?)) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nicho" or "night" show up more?
"night" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,792 in our Portuguese list, against #18,123 for "nicho". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "nicho" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "night" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #44,534 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nicho" and "night" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Niger vs night". 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 #44,534 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