Which to use
“palo” and “pavão” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #35,711
- “palo” frequency rank
- #19,519
- “pavão” frequency rank
- 55230
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | palo | pavão |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | incêndio, fogo: | pendão, flor masculina do milho |
Where the eye mixes palo and pavão
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. palo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against pavão's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses palo with pavão
A purely visual mix-up. palo (/ˈpɑ.lo̞/) and pavão (/pa.'boŋ/) 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 55230, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
palo is recorded at frequency rank #35,711, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɑ.lo̞/. pavão is at rank #19,519, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pa.'boŋ/.
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 55230, this pair ranks #10,726 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of palo vs pavão
Shared letters: aop. Private to "palo": l. Private to "pavão": vã.
"palo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "pavão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- palo ← aplo · pallo · paol · plao · ppalo
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "palo" and "pavão" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "palo" vs "pavão" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "palo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pavão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #10,726 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "palo" and "pavão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palo 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 #10,726 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.