palcovspicoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,793
“palco” frequency rank
#6,685
“pico” frequency rank
8478
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palco pico
Definition plataforma onde se executam (interpretam) peças de teatro ou música cume aguçado

Where the eye mixes palco and pico

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

5 ch
palco
4 ch
pico

Visual trap between palco and pico

A purely visual mix-up. palco (/ˈpaɫ.ku/) and pico (/ˈpi.ku/) 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 8478, 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/. pico is at rank #6,685, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpi.ku/.

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 8478, this pair ranks #65,275 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of palco vs pico

Shared letters: cop. Private to "palco": al. Private to "pico": i.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palcoaplco · paclo · palcco · pallco · paloc · placo · ppalco
  • picoipco · pcio · picco · pioc · ppico

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "palco" for "pico" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpaɫ.ku/ versus /ˈpi.ku/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "palco" vs "pico" - which ranks higher?
"palco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,793 in our Portuguese list, against #6,685 for "pico". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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 "pico" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,275 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palco" and "pico" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pico vs pix". 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 #65,275 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