pagãovspragaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#28,306
“pagão” frequency rank
#5,674
“praga” frequency rank
33980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pagão praga
Definition diz-se de pessoa não batizada imprecação

Letter map: pagão vs praga

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

5 ch
pagão
5 ch
praga

Part-of-speech tell for pagão / praga

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pagão is anadjective and pragaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pagão is recorded at frequency rank #28,306, classified as anadj. praga is at rank #5,674, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɾa.ɡɐ/.

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 33980, this pair ranks #33,401 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pagão vs praga

Shared letters: agp. Private to "pagão": oã. Private to "praga": r.

"pagão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "praga" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • praga ← parga · ppraga · praag · pragga · prgaa · prraga · rpaga

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pagão" for "praga" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pagão" is an adjective and "praga" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pagão" or "praga" show up more?
"praga" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,674 in our Portuguese list, against #28,306 for "pagão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "pagão" vs "praga" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pagão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "praga" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,401 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pagão" and "praga" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pagão 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 #33,401 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