pagãovspavioWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#28,306
“pagão” frequency rank
#38,849
“pavio” frequency rank
67155
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pagão pavio
Definition diz-se de pessoa não batizada cabo das velas, círios, candeias, mecha

Letter map: pagão vs pavio

Shared letters muted; letters that set pagão and pavio apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. pagão and pavio follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
pagão
5 ch
pavio

Part-of-speech tell for pagão / pavio

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pagão is anadjective and pavioanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67155, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pagão is recorded at frequency rank #28,306, classified as anadj. pavio is at rank #38,849, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɐ.ˈvi.u/.

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 67155, this pair ranks #4,739 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pagão vs pavio

Shared letters: aop. Private to "pagão": gã. Private to "pavio": iv.

"pagão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "pavio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pavio ← apvio · paivo · pavoi · pavvio · ppavio · pvaio

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pagão" and "pavio" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pagão" is an adjective and "pavio" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pagão" vs "pavio" - which ranks higher?
"pagão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,306 in our Portuguese list, against #38,849 for "pavio". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pagão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,739 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pagão" and "pavio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "papiro vs pavio". 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 #4,739 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