pescarvspiscarTell them apart

Which to use

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

#15,884
“pescar” frequency rank
#15,179
“piscar” frequency rank
31063
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pescar piscar
Definition apanhar na água (o peixe ou outro animal aquático) ação de fechar e abrir rapidamente os olhos

Where the eye mixes pescar and piscar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. pescar 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
pescar
6 ch
piscar

Visual trap between pescar and piscar

A purely visual mix-up. pescar (/pesˈka(ʁ)/ [pesˈka(h)]) 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 differ by a single letter - e in “pescar” becomes i in “piscar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31063, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pescar is recorded at frequency rank #15,884, classified as averb, pronounced /pesˈka(ʁ)/ [pesˈka(h)]. 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 31063, this pair ranks #37,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pescar vs piscar

Shared letters: acprs. Private to "pescar": e. Private to "piscar": i.

"pescar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "piscar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pescar ← epscar · pecsar · pesacr · pescarr · pesccar · pescra · pesscar · ppescar
  • piscar ← ipscar · picsar · pisacr · piscarr · pisccar · piscra · pisscar · ppiscar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pescar" and "piscar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/pesˈka(ʁ)/ [pesˈka(h)] versus /pisˈka(ʁ)/ [pisˈka(h)]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pescar" vs "piscar" - which ranks higher?
"piscar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,179 in our Portuguese list, against #15,884 for "pescar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pescar" 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 #37,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pescar" and "piscar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pastar vs pescar". 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 #37,151 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