pastarvspiscarWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#48,580
“pastar” frequency rank
#15,179
“piscar” frequency rank
63759
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pastar piscar
Definition comer a erva de ação de fechar e abrir rapidamente os olhos

Where the eye mixes pastar and piscar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pastar and piscar follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
pastar
6 ch
piscar

Visual trap between pastar and piscar

A purely visual mix-up. pastar (/pɐʃ.ˈtaɾ/) and piscar (/pisˈka(ʁ)/ [pisˈka(h)]) 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 63759, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pastar is recorded at frequency rank #48,580, classified as averb, pronounced /pɐʃ.ˈtaɾ/. piscar is at rank #15,179, tagged as averb, pronounced /pisˈka(ʁ)/ [pisˈka(h)].

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 63759, this pair ranks #6,059 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pastar vs piscar

Shared letters: aprs. Private to "pastar": t. Private to "piscar": ci.

"pastar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "piscar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pastar ← apstar · pasatr · passtar · pastarr · pastra · pasttar · patsar · ppastar
  • piscar ← ipscar · picsar · pisacr · piscarr · pisccar · piscra · pisscar · ppiscar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pastar" for "piscar" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/pɐʃ.ˈtaɾ/ versus /pisˈka(ʁ)/ [pisˈka(h)]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pastar" or "piscar" show up more?
"piscar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,179 in our Portuguese list, against #48,580 for "pastar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "pastar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piscar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,059 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pastar" and "piscar" 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 #6,059 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