pingovspiscoTell them apart

Quick tell: pingo is a noun, pisco is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#17,885
“pingo” frequency rank
#31,500
“pisco” frequency rank
49385
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pingo pisco
Definition gota; gotejamento; goteira pequeno, fechado, referido aos olhos

Letter map: pingo vs pisco

Shared letters muted; letters that set pingo and pisco apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. pingo and pisco follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
pingo
5 ch
pisco

Grammar separator: pingo vs pisco

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pingo is anoun and piscoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49385, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pingo is recorded at frequency rank #17,885, classified as anoun. pisco is at rank #31,500, tagged as anadj.

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 49385, this pair ranks #15,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pingo vs pisco

Shared letters: iop. Private to "pingo": gn. Private to "pisco": cs.

"pingo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pisco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pingo ← ipngo · pigno · pinggo · pinngo · pinog · pnigo · ppingo
  • pisco ← ipsco · picso · piscco · pisoc · pissco · ppisco · psico

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pingo" for "pisco" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pingo" is a noun and "pisco" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pingo" or "pisco"?
"pingo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,885 in our Portuguese list, against #31,500 for "pisco". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "pingo" vs "pisco" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pingo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pisco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pingo" and "pisco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pilão vs pisco". 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 #15,634 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