PolvspolaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,125
“Pol” frequency rank
#42,156
“pola” frequency rank
64281
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pol pola
Definition polo estaca

Where the eye mixes Pol and pola

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Pol runs 3 letters (CVC) against pola's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Pol
4 ch
pola

Look-alike desk: Pol vs pola

A purely visual mix-up. Pol (/poːl/ ouvir^(fonte ?)) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “Pol” sits inside “pola”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64281, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pol is recorded at frequency rank #22,125, classified as anoun, pronounced /poːl/ ouvir^(fonte ?). 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 64281, this pair ranks #5,843 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pol vs pola

Shared letters: lop. Private to "Pol": -. Private to "pola": a.

"Pol" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "pola" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pola ← opla · ploa · poal · polla · ppola

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Pol" for "pola" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/poːl/ ouvir^(fonte ?) versus /'pɔ.la/ para o ramo da àrvore) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Pol" or "pola"?
"Pol" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,125 in our Portuguese list, against #42,156 for "pola". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pol" 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 #5,843 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pol" 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 #5,843 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