pálidovsplácidoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,131
“pálido” frequency rank
#42,155
“plácido” frequency rank
66286
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pálido plácido
Definition descorado, demasiadamente branco ou amarelo calmo, tranquilo, sereno

Letter map: pálido vs plácido

Shared letters muted; letters that set pálido and plácido apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. pálido runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against plácido's 7 (CCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
pálido
7 ch
plácido

Spelling & dictionary notes on pálido vs plácido

pálido and plácido 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 66286, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pálido is recorded at frequency rank #24,131, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpa.li.du/. plácido is at rank #42,155, tagged as anadj.

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 66286, this pair ranks #5,049 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pálido vs plácido

Shared letters: dilopá. Private to "pálido": -. Private to "plácido": c.

"pálido" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "plácido" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pálido" and "plácido" be used interchangeably?
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.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pálido" or "plácido" show up more?
"pálido" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,131 in our Portuguese list, against #42,155 for "plácido". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "pálido" and "plácido". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pálido" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plácido" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,049 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pálido" and "plácido" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pálido vs papiro". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #5,049 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