olhadovsolhoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#19,511
“olhado” frequency rank
#1,251
“olho” frequency rank
20762
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature olhado olho
Definition que foi visto com os olhos órgão, geralmente aos pares, de vários animais responsável pela visão

Where the eye mixes olhado and olho

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. olhado runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against olho's 4 (VCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
olhado
4 ch
olho

Visual trap between olhado and olho

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: olhado is /o.ˈʎa.du/ while olho is /ˈɔ.ʎʊ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20762, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

olhado is recorded at frequency rank #19,511, classified as anadj, pronounced /o.ˈʎa.du/. olho is at rank #1,251, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɔ.ʎʊ/.

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 20762, this pair ranks #49,670 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of olhado vs olho

Shared letters: hlo. Private to "olhado": ad. Private to "olho": -.

"olhado" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "olho" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • olhado ← lohado · ohlado · olahdo · olhaddo · olhaod · olhdao · olhhado · ollhado
  • olho ← loho · ohlo · olhho · ollho · oloh

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "olhado" for "olho" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "olhado" is an adjective and "olho" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "olhado" vs "olho" - which ranks higher?
"olho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,251 in our Portuguese list, against #19,511 for "olhado". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "olhado" and "olho" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "olhado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "olho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,670 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "olhado" and "olho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "olhado vs olhai". 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 #49,670 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