passavspastarWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: passa is a intj, pastar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“passa” is an intj and “pastar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#469
“passa” frequency rank
#48,580
“pastar” frequency rank
49049
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature passa pastar
Definition expressa enxotadura direcionada a cão comer a erva de

Where the eye mixes passa and pastar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
passa
6 ch
pastar

Visual trap between passa and pastar

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: passa is /ˈpa.sɐ/ while pastar is /pɐʃ.ˈtaɾ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (intj vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49049, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

passa is recorded at frequency rank #469, classified as anintj, pronounced /ˈpa.sɐ/. pastar is at rank #48,580, tagged as averb, pronounced /pɐʃ.ˈtaɾ/.

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 49049, this pair ranks #16,025 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of passa vs pastar

Shared letters: aps. Private to "passa": -. Private to "pastar": rt.

"passa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pastar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passaapssa · pasa · pasas · ppassa · psasa
  • pastarapstar · pasatr · passtar · pastarr · pastra · pasttar · patsar · ppastar

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "passa" and "pastar" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "passa" is an intj and "pastar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "passa" vs "pastar" - which ranks higher?
"passa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #469 in our Portuguese list, against #48,580 for "pastar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "passa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pastar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,025 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "passa" and "pastar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pastar vs pasteur". 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 #16,025 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