palmovspartoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#41,647
“palmo” frequency rank
#3,925
“parto” frequency rank
45572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palmo parto
Definition medida igual à distância entre as extremidades dos dedos polegar e mínimo de uma mão aberta o ato de dar à luz, o ato de parir

Where the eye mixes palmo and parto

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

5 ch
palmo
5 ch
parto

Visual trap between palmo and parto

A purely visual mix-up. palmo (/ˈpaɫ.mu/) and parto (/ˈpaɾ.tu/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

palmo is recorded at frequency rank #41,647, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaɫ.mu/. parto is at rank #3,925, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaɾ.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 45572, this pair ranks #19,814 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of palmo vs parto

Shared letters: aop. Private to "palmo": lm. Private to "parto": rt.

"palmo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "parto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palmoaplmo · pallmo · palmmo · palom · pamlo · plamo · ppalmo
  • partoaprto · parot · parrto · partto · patro · pparto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "palmo" and "parto" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpaɫ.mu/ versus /ˈpaɾ.tu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "palmo" or "parto" show up more?
"parto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,925 in our Portuguese list, against #41,647 for "palmo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "palmo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "parto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,814 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palmo" and "parto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palmo 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 #19,814 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