pombavspoxaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pomba is a noun, poxa is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pomba” is a noun and “poxa” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,359
“pomba” frequency rank
#20,097
“poxa” frequency rank
37456
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pomba poxa
Definition ave columbiforme da família dos columbídeos indica surpresa, admiração, irritação

Letter map: pomba vs poxa

Shared letters muted; letters that set pomba and poxa apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. pomba runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against poxa's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pomba
4 ch
poxa

Part-of-speech tell for pomba / poxa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pomba is anoun and poxaanintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pomba is recorded at frequency rank #17,359, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpõ.bɐ/. poxa is at rank #20,097, tagged as anintj.

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 37456, this pair ranks #29,159 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pomba vs poxa

Shared letters: aop. Private to "pomba": bm. Private to "poxa": x.

"pomba" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "poxa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pomba ← opmba · pmoba · pobma · pomab · pombba · pommba · ppomba
  • poxa ← opxa · poax · poxxa · ppoxa · pxoa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pomba" for "poxa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pomba" is a noun and "poxa" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pomba" or "poxa"?
"pomba" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,359 in our Portuguese list, against #20,097 for "poxa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pomba" and "poxa".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pomba" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poxa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,159 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pomba" and "poxa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pix vs poxa". 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 #29,159 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