pêlovspuxoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pêlo is a noun, puxo is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pêlo” is a noun and “puxo” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,526
“pêlo” frequency rank
#34,869
“puxo” frequency rank
61395
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pêlo puxo
Definition vide pelo primeira pessoa do singular do presente indicativo do verbo puxar

Where the eye mixes pêlo and puxo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. pêlo and puxo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
pêlo
4 ch
puxo

Visual trap between pêlo and puxo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pêlo is /ˈpe.lu/ while puxo is /ˈpu.ʃu/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61395, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pêlo is recorded at frequency rank #26,526, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpe.lu/. puxo is at rank #34,869, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpu.ʃu/.

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 61395, this pair ranks #7,157 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pêlo vs puxo

Shared letters: op. Private to "pêlo": lê. Private to "puxo": ux.

"pêlo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "puxo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puxo ← ppuxo · puox · puxxo · pxuo · upxo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pêlo" and "puxo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pêlo" is a noun and "puxo" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pêlo" or "puxo" show up more?
"pêlo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,526 in our Portuguese list, against #34,869 for "puxo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pêlo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puxo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,157 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pêlo" and "puxo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pix vs puxo". 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 #7,157 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