palatovspastoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#42,586
“palato” frequency rank
#23,436
“pasto” frequency rank
66022
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palato pasto
Definition divisão muscular e óssea que separa a cavidade nasal da cavidade oral ato de pastar

Where the eye mixes palato and pasto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. palato runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against pasto's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
palato
5 ch
pasto

Visual trap between palato and pasto

A purely visual mix-up. palato (/pɐ.ˈla.tu/) and pasto (/ˈpaʃ.tu/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66022, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

palato is recorded at frequency rank #42,586, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɐ.ˈla.tu/. pasto is at rank #23,436, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaʃ.tu/.

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 66022, this pair ranks #5,139 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of palato vs pasto

Shared letters: aopt. Private to "palato": l. Private to "pasto": s.

"palato" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "pasto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palato ← aplato · paalto · palaot · palatto · pallato · paltao · plaato · ppalato
  • pasto ← apsto · pasot · passto · pastto · patso · ppasto · psato

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "palato" for "pasto" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/pɐ.ˈla.tu/ versus /ˈpaʃ.tu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "palato" or "pasto" show up more?
"pasto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,436 in our Portuguese list, against #42,586 for "palato". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "palato" and "pasto" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "palato" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pasto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,139 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palato" and "pasto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palato vs Pluto". 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 #5,139 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