pesvspesarWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#23,445
“pes” frequency rank
#9,088
“pesar” frequency rank
32533
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pes pesar
Definition cão condolência

Where the eye mixes pes and pesar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pes runs 3 letters (CVC) against pesar's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
pes
5 ch
pesar

Visual trap between pes and pesar

A purely visual mix-up. pes (/ˈpɛs ouvir^(fonte ?)) and pesar (/pɨ.ˈzaɾ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “pes” sits inside “pesar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32533, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pes is recorded at frequency rank #23,445, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɛs ouvir^(fonte ?). pesar is at rank #9,088, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɨ.ˈzaɾ/.

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 32533, this pair ranks #35,244 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pes vs pesar

Shared letters: eps. Private to "pes": -. Private to "pesar": ar.

"pes" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pesar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pesar ← epsar · peasr · pesarr · pessar · ppesar · psear

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pes" for "pesar" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpɛs ouvir^(fonte ?) versus /pɨ.ˈzaɾ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pes" vs "pesar" - which ranks higher?
"pesar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,088 in our Portuguese list, against #23,445 for "pes". 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 "pes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pesar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,244 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pes" and "pesar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pes vs pix". 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 #35,244 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