pinçavspoçaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,865
“pinça” frequency rank
#29,093
“poça” frequency rank
58958
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pinça poça
Definition pequena tenaz cavidade pouco profunda onde se acumula água

Where the eye mixes pinça and poça

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pinça runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against poça's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pinça
4 ch
poça

Look-alike desk: pinça vs poça

A purely visual mix-up. pinça (/ˈpĩ.sɐ/) and poça (/ˈpo.sɐ/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58958, 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/. poça is at rank #29,093, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpo.sɐ/.

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 58958, this pair ranks #8,457 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pinça vs poça

Shared letters: apç. Private to "pinça": in. Private to "poça": o.

"pinça" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "poça" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pinça" for "poça" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpĩ.sɐ/ versus /ˈpo.sɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pinça" or "poça"?
"poça" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,093 in our Portuguese list, against #29,865 for "pinça". 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 "pinça" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poça" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,457 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pinça" and "poça" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paçoca vs poça". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #8,457 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