pingavspragaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#24,754
“pinga” frequency rank
#5,674
“praga” frequency rank
30428
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pinga praga
Definition diz-se de pessoa que não tem dinheiro imprecação

Where the eye mixes pinga and praga

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pinga
5 ch
praga

Visual trap between pinga and praga

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pinga is /ˈpĩ.ɡɐ/ while praga is /ˈpɾa.ɡɐ/. 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 30428, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pinga is recorded at frequency rank #24,754, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpĩ.ɡɐ/. praga is at rank #5,674, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɾa.ɡɐ/.

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 30428, this pair ranks #37,920 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pinga vs praga

Shared letters: agp. Private to "pinga": in. Private to "praga": r.

"pinga" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "praga" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pingaipnga · pigna · pinag · pingga · pinnga · pniga · ppinga
  • pragaparga · ppraga · praag · pragga · prgaa · prraga · rpaga

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pinga" and "praga" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pinga" is an adjective and "praga" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pinga" or "praga" show up more?
"praga" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,674 in our Portuguese list, against #24,754 for "pinga". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pinga" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "praga" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,920 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pinga" and "praga" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piegas vs pinga". 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 #37,920 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