pomovspovoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#44,054
“pomo” frequency rank
#432
“povo” frequency rank
44486
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pomo povo
Definition fruto carnudo conjunto dos habitantes de um país, de uma cidade, de uma localidade, etc

Where the eye mixes pomo and povo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pomo and povo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
pomo
4 ch
povo

Why the eye confuses pomo with povo

A purely visual mix-up. pomo (/ˈpo.mu/) and povo (/ˈpo.vu/) 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 - m in “pomo” becomes v in “povo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44486, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pomo is recorded at frequency rank #44,054, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpo.mu/. povo is at rank #432, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpo.vu/.

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 44486, this pair ranks #20,992 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pomo vs povo

Shared letters: op. Private to "pomo": m. Private to "povo": v.

"pomo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "povo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pomo ← opmo · pmoo · pommo · poom · ppomo
  • povo ← opvo · poov · povvo · ppovo · pvoo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pomo" for "povo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpo.mu/ versus /ˈpo.vu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pomo" vs "povo" - which ranks higher?
"povo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #432 in our Portuguese list, against #44,054 for "pomo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pomo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "povo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,992 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pomo" and "povo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pito vs pomo". 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 #20,992 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