Which to use
“poça” and “pola” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,093
- “poça” frequency rank
- #42,156
- “pola” frequency rank
- 71249
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poça | pola |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | cavidade pouco profunda onde se acumula água | estaca |
Where the eye mixes poça and pola
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. poça and pola follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: poça vs pola
A purely visual mix-up. poça (/ˈpo.sɐ/) and pola (/'pɔ.la/ para o ramo da àrvore) 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 a single letter - ç in “poça” becomes l in “pola”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71249, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poça is recorded at frequency rank #29,093, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpo.sɐ/. pola is at rank #42,156, tagged as anoun, pronounced /'pɔ.la/ para o ramo da àrvore.
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 71249, this pair ranks #3,390 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of poça vs pola
Shared letters: aop. Private to "poça": ç. Private to "pola": l.
"poça" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "pola" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- pola ← opla · ploa · poal · polla · ppola
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "poça" for "pola" ever safe?
Frequency check: "poça" vs "pola" - which ranks higher?
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 "poça" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pola" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #3,390 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poça" and "pola" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pola vs Poland". 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 #3,390 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.