picadavspitadaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#14,207
“picada” frequency rank
#23,448
“pitada” frequency rank
37655
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature picada pitada
Definition golpe dado com pico pequena porção de quaisquer substâncias apresentadas em pó

Where the eye mixes picada and pitada

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
picada
6 ch
pitada

Look-alike desk: picada vs pitada

A purely visual mix-up. picada (/pi.ˈka.dɐ/) and pitada (/pi.ˈta.dɐ/) 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 - c in “picada” becomes t in “pitada”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37655, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

picada is recorded at frequency rank #14,207, classified as anoun, pronounced /pi.ˈka.dɐ/. pitada is at rank #23,448, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pi.ˈta.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 37655, this pair ranks #28,920 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of picada vs pitada

Shared letters: adip. Private to "picada": c. Private to "pitada": t.

"picada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "pitada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picadaipcada · pciada · piacda · picaad · picadda · piccada · picdaa · ppicada
  • pitadaiptada · piatda · pitaad · pitadda · pitdaa · pittada · ppitada · ptiada

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "picada" for "pitada" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/pi.ˈka.dɐ/ versus /pi.ˈta.dɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "picada" or "pitada"?
"picada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,207 in our Portuguese list, against #23,448 for "pitada". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "picada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pitada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,920 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "picada" and "pitada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pétala vs pitada". 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 #28,920 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