pacasvspãesConfusable pair

Quick tell: pacas is a adverb, pães is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pacas” is an adverb and “pães” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,064
“pacas” frequency rank
#14,933
“pães” frequency rank
57997
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pacas pães
Definition muito plural de pão

Letter map: pacas vs pães

Shared letters muted; letters that set pacas and pães apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. pacas runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against pães's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pacas
4 ch
pães

Role in the sentence - pacas and pães

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pacas is anadverb and pãesanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57997, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pacas is recorded at frequency rank #43,064, classified as anadv. pães is at rank #14,933, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɐ̃j̃ʃ/.

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 57997, this pair ranks #8,993 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pacas vs pães

Shared letters: ps. Private to "pacas": ac. Private to "pães": eã.

"pacas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "pães" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacas ← apcas · paacs · pacass · paccas · pacsa · pcaas · ppacas

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pacas" and "pães" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pacas" is an adverb and "pães" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pacas" or "pães" show up more?
"pães" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,933 in our Portuguese list, against #43,064 for "pacas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "pacas" vs "pães" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pacas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pães" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,993 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pacas" and "pães" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pacas vs pança". 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 #8,993 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