pãovsplatôWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,942
“pão” frequency rank
#45,020
“platô” frequency rank
46962
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pão platô
Definition alimento à base de farinha amassada, fermentada e assada em forno o disco, numa embreagem a disco, causador da transmissão da força do motor até as rodas de tração

Letter map: pão vs platô

Shared letters muted; letters that set pão and platô apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. pão runs 3 letters (CVV) against platô's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
pão
5 ch
platô

Pair insight - pão / platô

pão and platô 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46962, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pão is recorded at frequency rank #1,942, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɐ̃w̃/. platô is at rank #45,020, tagged as anoun.

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 46962, this pair ranks #18,346 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pão vs platô

Shared letters: p. Private to "pão": oã. Private to "platô": altô.

"pão" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "platô" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pão" and "platô" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 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 "pão" or "platô" show up more?
"pão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,942 in our Portuguese list, against #45,020 for "platô". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "pão" vs "platô" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "platô" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,346 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pão" and "platô" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "platô vs Pluto". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #18,346 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