ouvidovsouvirWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ouvido is a noun, ouvir is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ouvido” is a noun and “ouvir” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,249
“ouvido” frequency rank
#507
“ouvir” frequency rank
2756
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ouvido ouvir
Definition parte interna do órgão responsável pela audição (a orelha) perceber sons

Letter map: ouvido vs ouvir

Shared letters muted; letters that set ouvido and ouvir apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. ouvido runs 6 letters (VVCVCV) against ouvir's 5 (VVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
ouvido
5 ch
ouvir

Part-of-speech tell for ouvido / ouvir

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ouvido is anoun and ouviraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2756, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ouvido is recorded at frequency rank #2,249, classified as anoun, pronounced /ow.ˈvi.du/. ouvir is at rank #507, tagged as averb.

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 2756, this pair ranks #72,523 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ouvido vs ouvir

Shared letters: iouv. Private to "ouvido": d. Private to "ouvir": r.

"ouvido" · 6 letters · shape VVCVCV  ·  "ouvir" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ouvido ← ouivdo · ouvdio · ouviddo · ouviod · ouvvido · ovuido · uovido
  • ouvir ← ouivr · ouvirr · ouvri · ouvvir · ovuir · uovir

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ouvido" and "ouvir" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ouvido" is a noun and "ouvir" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ouvido" or "ouvir" show up more?
"ouvir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #507 in our Portuguese list, against #2,249 for "ouvido". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "ouvido" and "ouvir". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ouvido" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ouvir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,523 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ouvido" and "ouvir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ouriço vs ouvido". 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 #72,523 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