picavspodaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pica is a adjective, poda is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,962
“pica” frequency rank
#37,471
“poda” frequency rank
45433
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pica poda
Definition excelente, de grande qualidade corte dos ramos das árvores ou arbustos, ação de podar

Where the eye mixes pica and poda

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pica
4 ch
poda

Visual trap between pica and poda

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pica is /ˈpi.kɐ/ while poda is /ˈpɔ.dɐ/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45433, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pica is recorded at frequency rank #7,962, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpi.kɐ/. poda is at rank #37,471, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɔ.dɐ/.

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 45433, this pair ranks #19,963 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pica vs poda

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pica": ci. Private to "poda": do.

"pica" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "poda" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picaipca · pcia · piac · picca · ppica
  • podaopda · pdoa · poad · podda · ppoda

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pica" for "poda" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pica" is an adjective and "poda" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pica" vs "poda" - which ranks higher?
"pica" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,962 in our Portuguese list, against #37,471 for "poda". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "pica" and "poda" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pica" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poda" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,963 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pica" and "poda" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poda vs pomo". 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 #19,963 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