pinhãovspinhoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#31,497
“pinhão” frequency rank
#15,178
“pinho” frequency rank
46675
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pinhão pinho
Definition o fruto do pinheiro-manso árvore do gênero das Pinus, de folhas aciculares que perduram todo o ano

Where the eye mixes pinhão and pinho

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. pinhão runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against pinho's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
pinhão
5 ch
pinho

Look-alike desk: pinhão vs pinho

A purely visual mix-up. pinhão (/pi.ˈɲɐ̃w̃/) and pinho (/ˈpi.ɲu/) 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 46675, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pinhão is recorded at frequency rank #31,497, classified as anoun, pronounced /pi.ˈɲɐ̃w̃/. pinho is at rank #15,178, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpi.ɲu/.

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 46675, this pair ranks #18,638 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pinhão vs pinho

Shared letters: hinop. Private to "pinhão": ã. Private to "pinho": -.

"pinhão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "pinho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pinho ← ipnho · pihno · pinhho · pinnho · pinoh · pniho · ppinho

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pinhão" for "pinho" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/pi.ˈɲɐ̃w̃/ versus /ˈpi.ɲu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pinhão" or "pinho" show up more?
"pinho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,178 in our Portuguese list, against #31,497 for "pinhão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "pinhão" and "pinho" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pinhão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pinho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,638 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pinhão" and "pinho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pilão vs pinhão". 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 #18,638 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