pagãovspalmoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#28,306
“pagão” frequency rank
#41,647
“palmo” frequency rank
69953
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pagão palmo
Definition diz-se de pessoa não batizada medida igual à distância entre as extremidades dos dedos polegar e mínimo de uma mão aberta

Letter map: pagão vs palmo

Shared letters muted; letters that set pagão and palmo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. pagão (CVCVV) and palmo (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
pagão
5 ch
palmo

Role in the sentence - pagão and palmo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pagão is anadjective and palmoanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69953, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pagão is recorded at frequency rank #28,306, classified as anadj. palmo is at rank #41,647, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaɫ.mu/.

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 69953, this pair ranks #3,784 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pagão vs palmo

Shared letters: aop. Private to "pagão": gã. Private to "palmo": lm.

"pagão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "palmo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palmo ← aplmo · pallmo · palmmo · palom · pamlo · plamo · ppalmo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pagão" and "palmo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pagão" is an adjective and "palmo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pagão" vs "palmo" - which ranks higher?
"pagão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,306 in our Portuguese list, against #41,647 for "palmo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pagão" and "palmo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pagão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "palmo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,784 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pagão" and "palmo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palmo vs pilão". 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 #3,784 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