pistavspistolaWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,903
“pista” frequency rank
#7,561
“pistola” frequency rank
9464
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pista pistola
Definition parte de um campo de aviação onde aterram e donde levantam aeronaves zangado, indignado com alguma coisa

Letter map: pista vs pistola

Shared letters muted; letters that set pista and pistola apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
pista
7 ch
pistola

Role in the sentence - pista and pistola

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pista is anoun and pistolaanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pista is recorded at frequency rank #1,903, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpiʃ.tɐ/. pistola is at rank #7,561, 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 9464, this pair ranks #63,955 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pista vs pistola

Shared letters: aipst. Private to "pista": -. Private to "pistola": lo.

"pista" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pistola" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pistaipsta · pisat · pissta · pistta · pitsa · ppista · psita
  • pistolaipstola · pisotla · pisstola · pistloa · pistoal · pistolla · pisttola · pitsola

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pista" and "pistola" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pista" is a noun and "pistola" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pista" or "pistola" show up more?
"pista" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,903 in our Portuguese list, against #7,561 for "pistola". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "pista" vs "pistola" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pista" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pistola" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,955 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pista" and "pistola" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pastar vs pista". 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 #63,955 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