pacasvsplacaConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#43,064
“pacas” frequency rank
#3,510
“placa” frequency rank
46574
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pacas placa
Definition muito peça de materiais diversos longa e larga mas de pouca espessura

Letter map: pacas vs placa

Shared letters muted; letters that set pacas and placa apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
pacas
5 ch
placa

Grammar separator: pacas vs placa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pacas is anadverb and placaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46574, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pacas is recorded at frequency rank #43,064, classified as anadv. placa is at rank #3,510, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpla.kɐ/.

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 46574, this pair ranks #18,717 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pacas vs placa

Shared letters: acp. Private to "pacas": s. Private to "placa": l.

"pacas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "placa" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pacasapcas · paacs · pacass · paccas · pacsa · pcaas · ppacas
  • placalpaca · palca · plaac · placca · plcaa · pllaca · pplaca

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pacas" for "placa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pacas" is an adverb and "placa" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pacas" or "placa" show up more?
"placa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,510 in our Portuguese list, against #43,064 for "pacas". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "pacas" vs "placa" 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 "placa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,717 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pacas" and "placa" 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 #18,717 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