paivspaloWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#240
“pai” frequency rank
#35,711
“palo” frequency rank
35951
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pai palo
Definition homem que tem filhos, naturais ou adotivos incêndio, fogo:

Letter map: pai vs palo

Shared letters muted; letters that set pai and palo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
pai
4 ch
palo

Corpus notes: pai and palo

pai and palo 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35951, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pai is recorded at frequency rank #240, classified as anoun. palo is at rank #35,711, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɑ.lo̞/.

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 35951, this pair ranks #30,977 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pai vs palo

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pai": i. Private to "palo": lo.

"pai" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "palo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paloaplo · pallo · paol · plao · ppalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pai" and "palo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "pai" vs "palo" - which ranks higher?
"pai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #240 in our Portuguese list, against #35,711 for "palo". 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 "pai" and "palo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "palo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,977 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pai" and "palo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palo 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 #30,977 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