Which to use
“palmo” is a noun and “pasmo” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #41,647
- “palmo” frequency rank
- #42,145
- “pasmo” frequency rank
- 83792
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | palmo | pasmo |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | medida igual à distância entre as extremidades dos dedos polegar e mínimo de uma mão aberta | espantado |
Where the eye mixes palmo and pasmo
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. palmo and pasmo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses palmo with pasmo
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: palmo is /ˈpaɫ.mu/ while pasmo is /ˈpaʒ.mu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “palmo” becomes s in “pasmo”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83792, 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/. pasmo is at rank #42,145, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈpaʒ.mu/.
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 83792, this pair ranks #874 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of palmo vs pasmo
Shared letters: amop. Private to "palmo": l. Private to "pasmo": s.
"palmo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "pasmo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "palmo" for "pasmo" ever safe?
Frequency check: "palmo" vs "pasmo" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "palmo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pasmo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #874 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "palmo" and "pasmo" 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 #874 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.