passadovspassarTell them apart

Quick tell: passado is a adjective, passar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“passado” is an adjective and “passar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#418
“passado” frequency rank
#380
“passar” frequency rank
798
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature passado passar
Definition diz-se do evento que não mais ocorre ou da coisa que não mais existe percorrer, atravessar

Letter map: passado vs passar

Shared letters muted; letters that set passado and passar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
passado
6 ch
passar

Role in the sentence - passado and passar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: passado is anadjective and passaraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 798, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

passado is recorded at frequency rank #418, classified as anadj. passar is at rank #380, tagged as averb, pronounced /pɐ.ˈsaɾ/.

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 798, this pair ranks #74,853 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of passado vs passar

Shared letters: aps. Private to "passado": do. Private to "passar": r.

"passado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "passar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passadoapssado · pasado · pasasdo · passaddo · passaod · passdao · ppassado · psasado
  • passarapssar · pasar · pasasr · passarr · passra · ppassar · psasar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "passado" for "passar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "passado" is an adjective and "passar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "passado" vs "passar" - which ranks higher?
"passar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #380 in our Portuguese list, against #418 for "passado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "passado" and "passar". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "passado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "passar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,853 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "passado" and "passar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "passar vs pastar". 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 #74,853 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