passadavspescadaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,340
“passada” frequency rank
#45,991
“pescada” frequency rank
47331
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature passada pescada
Definition ato de dar um passo peixe teleósteo da família dos Gadíneos muito apreciado

Where the eye mixes passada and pescada

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. passada 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
passada
7 ch
pescada

Look-alike desk: passada vs pescada

A purely visual mix-up. passada (/pɐ.ˈsa.dɐ/) and pescada (/pɨʃ.ˈka.dɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47331, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

passada is recorded at frequency rank #1,340, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɐ.ˈsa.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 47331, this pair ranks #17,926 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of passada vs pescada

Shared letters: adps. Private to "passada": -. Private to "pescada": ce.

"passada" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "pescada" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passada ← apssada · pasada · pasasda · passaad · passadda · passdaa · ppassada · psasada
  • pescada ← epscada · pecsada · pesacda · pescaad · pescadda · pesccada · pescdaa · pesscada

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "passada" and "pescada" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/pɐ.ˈsa.dɐ/ versus /pɨʃ.ˈka.dɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "passada" or "pescada" show up more?
"passada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,340 in our Portuguese list, against #45,991 for "pescada". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "passada" 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 #17,926 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "passada" 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 #17,926 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