pegadavspesadaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pegada is a noun, pesada is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pegada” is a noun and “pesada” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,583
“pegada” frequency rank
#4,943
“pesada” frequency rank
15526
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pegada pesada
Definition vestígio que o pé deixa no solo feminino do adjetivo pesado

Letter map: pegada vs pesada

Shared letters muted; letters that set pegada and pesada apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

6 ch
pegada
6 ch
pesada

Part-of-speech tell for pegada / pesada

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pegada is anoun and pesadaanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - g in “pegada” becomes s in “pesada”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15526, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pegada is recorded at frequency rank #10,583, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɛ.ˈɡa.dɐ/. pesada is at rank #4,943, tagged as anadj.

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 15526, this pair ranks #56,273 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pegada vs pesada

Shared letters: adep. Private to "pegada": g. Private to "pesada": s.

"pegada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "pesada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pegadaepgada · peagda · pegaad · pegadda · pegdaa · peggada · pgeada · ppegada
  • pesadapeasda · pesaad · pesadda · pesdaa · pessada · ppesada · pseada

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pegada" and "pesada" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pegada" is a noun and "pesada" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pegada" vs "pesada" - which ranks higher?
"pesada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,943 in our Portuguese list, against #10,583 for "pegada". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "pegada" vs "pesada" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pegada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pesada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #56,273 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pegada" and "pesada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pegada vs pétala". 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 #56,273 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