Which to use
“porco” is an adjective and “portão” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,878
- “porco” frequency rank
- #5,450
- “portão” frequency rank
- 11328
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | porco | portão |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | que é muito sujo, imundo | porta grande |
Where the eye mixes porco and portão
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. porco runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against portão's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses porco with portão
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: porco is /ˈpoɾ.ku/ while portão is /puɾ.ˈtɐ̃w̃/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11328, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
porco is recorded at frequency rank #5,878, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpoɾ.ku/. portão is at rank #5,450, tagged as anoun, pronounced /puɾ.ˈtɐ̃w̃/.
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 11328, this pair ranks #61,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of porco vs portão
Shared letters: opr. Private to "porco": c. Private to "portão": tã.
"porco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "portão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- porco ← oprco · pocro · porcco · poroc · porrco · pporco · proco
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "porco" and "portão" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "porco" or "portão" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "porco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "portão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #61,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "porco" and "portão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pomo vs porco". 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 #61,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.