pinçavspitchWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,865
“pinça” frequency rank
#39,801
“pitch” frequency rank
69666
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pinça pitch
Definition pequena tenaz piche (usado em construção)

Where the eye mixes pinça and pitch

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. pinça (CVCCV) and pitch (CVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
pinça
5 ch
pitch

Visual trap between pinça and pitch

A purely visual mix-up. pinça (/ˈpĩ.sɐ/) and pitch (/pɪtʃ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69666, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pinça is recorded at frequency rank #29,865, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpĩ.sɐ/. pitch is at rank #39,801, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɪtʃ/.

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 69666, this pair ranks #3,882 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pinça vs pitch

Shared letters: ip. Private to "pinça": anç. Private to "pitch": cht.

"pinça" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pitch" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pitch ← iptch · picth · pitcch · pitchh · pithc · pittch · ppitch · ptich

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pinça" for "pitch" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpĩ.sɐ/ versus /pɪtʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pinça" or "pitch"?
"pinça" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,865 in our Portuguese list, against #39,801 for "pitch". 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 "pinça" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pitch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,882 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pinça" and "pitch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pitch vs pito". 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 #3,882 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