piresvspuréConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#5,985
“pires” frequency rank
#41,198
“puré” frequency rank
47183
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pires puré
Definition barato, ordinário, pretensioso, reles, vulgar iguaria feita de legumes, carnes ou frutas raladas transformadas num caldo grosso ou numa massa pastosa

Where the eye mixes pires and puré

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pires
4 ch
puré

Look-alike desk: pires vs puré

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pires is /ˈpi.ɾɨʃ/ while puré is /pu.ˈɾɛ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47183, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pires is recorded at frequency rank #5,985, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpi.ɾɨʃ/. puré is at rank #41,198, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pu.ˈɾɛ/.

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 47183, this pair ranks #18,090 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pires vs puré

Shared letters: pr. Private to "pires": eis. Private to "puré": .

"pires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "puré" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • piresipres · piers · piress · pirres · pirse · ppires · pries

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pires" and "puré" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pires" is an adjective and "puré" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pires" or "puré" show up more?
"pires" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,985 in our Portuguese list, against #41,198 for "puré". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pires" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,090 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pires" and "puré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pale vs puré". 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 #18,090 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