passavspautaWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#469
“passa” frequency rank
#5,330
“pauta” frequency rank
5799
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature passa pauta
Definition expressa enxotadura direcionada a cão papel com traços paralelos para auxiliar a escrita direita

Where the eye mixes passa and pauta

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
passa
5 ch
pauta

Why the eye confuses passa with pauta

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: passa is /ˈpa.sɐ/ while pauta is /ˈpaw.tɐ/. 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 (intj vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5799, 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/. pauta is at rank #5,330, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaw.tɐ/.

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 5799, this pair ranks #68,740 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of passa vs pauta

Shared letters: ap. Private to "passa": s. Private to "pauta": tu.

"passa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pauta" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passaapssa · pasa · pasas · ppassa · psasa
  • pautaaputa · patua · pauat · pautta · ppauta · puata

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "passa" and "pauta" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "passa" is an intj and "pauta" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "passa" or "pauta"?
"passa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #469 in our Portuguese list, against #5,330 for "pauta". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "passa" and "pauta" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "passa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pauta" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,740 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "passa" and "pauta" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pastar vs pauta". 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 #68,740 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