pancadavspescadaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pancada is a adjective, pescada is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pancada” is an adjective and “pescada” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,134
“pancada” frequency rank
#45,991
“pescada” frequency rank
62125
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pancada pescada
Definition maluco peixe teleósteo da família dos Gadíneos muito apreciado

Where the eye mixes pancada and pescada

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. pancada and pescada follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
pancada
7 ch
pescada

Visual trap between pancada and pescada

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pancada is /pɐ̃.ˈka.dɐ/ while pescada is /pɨʃ.ˈka.dɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62125, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pancada is recorded at frequency rank #16,134, classified as anadj, pronounced /pɐ̃.ˈka.dɐ/. pescada is at rank #45,991, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɨʃ.ˈka.dɐ/.

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 62125, this pair ranks #6,818 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pancada vs pescada

Shared letters: acdp. Private to "pancada": n. Private to "pescada": es.

"pancada" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "pescada" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pancada ← apncada · pacnada · panacda · pancaad · pancadda · panccada · pancdaa · panncada
  • pescada ← epscada · pecsada · pesacda · pescaad · pescadda · pesccada · pescdaa · pesscada

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pancada" and "pescada" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pancada" is an adjective and "pescada" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pancada" or "pescada" show up more?
"pancada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,134 in our Portuguese list, against #45,991 for "pescada". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pancada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pescada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,818 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pancada" and "pescada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pescada vs pescado". 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 #6,818 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