palcovspêloTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,793
“palco” frequency rank
#26,526
“pêlo” frequency rank
28319
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palco pêlo
Definition plataforma onde se executam (interpretam) peças de teatro ou música vide pelo

Where the eye mixes palco and pêlo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
palco
4 ch
pêlo

Visual trap between palco and pêlo

A purely visual mix-up. palco (/ˈpaɫ.ku/) and pêlo (/ˈpe.lu/) 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 28319, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

palco is recorded at frequency rank #1,793, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaɫ.ku/. pêlo is at rank #26,526, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpe.lu/.

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 28319, this pair ranks #40,494 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of palco vs pêlo

Shared letters: lop. Private to "palco": ac. Private to "pêlo": ê.

"palco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pêlo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palcoaplco · paclo · palcco · pallco · paloc · placo · ppalco

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "palco" for "pêlo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpaɫ.ku/ versus /ˈpe.lu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "palco" or "pêlo"?
"palco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,793 in our Portuguese list, against #26,526 for "pêlo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "palco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pêlo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,494 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palco" and "pêlo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pêlo 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 #40,494 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