padrãovspedrãoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,471
“padrão” frequency rank
#41,177
“pedrão” frequency rank
42648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature padrão pedrão
Definition monumento de pedra que os portugueses erigiam em terras que iam descobrindo pedrão grande

Letter map: padrão vs pedrão

Shared letters muted; letters that set padrão and pedrão apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. padrão and pedrão follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
padrão
6 ch
pedrão

Pair insight - padrão / pedrão

padrão and pedrão are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - a in “padrão” becomes e in “pedrão”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

padrão is recorded at frequency rank #1,471, classified as anoun. pedrão is at rank #41,177, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pe.'dɾoŋ/.

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 42648, this pair ranks #23,110 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of padrão vs pedrão

Shared letters: doprã. Private to "padrão": a. Private to "pedrão": e.

"padrão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "pedrão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "padrão" and "pedrão" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by a single letter - a in “padrão” becomes e in “pedrão”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "padrão" or "pedrão" show up more?
"padrão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,471 in our Portuguese list, against #41,177 for "pedrão". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "padrão" and "pedrão".

  • Full dictionary entry for "padrão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pedrão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,110 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "padrão" and "pedrão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pedrão vs Petro". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #23,110 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