pratovsprimoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: prato is a noun, primo is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prato” is a noun and “primo” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,431
“prato” frequency rank
#2,792
“primo” frequency rank
6223
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prato primo
Definition vasilha, normalmente de louça ou metal, em que se come ou se serve comida tipo de número que só é divisível por um e por si mesmo

Letter map: prato vs primo

Shared letters muted; letters that set prato and primo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
prato
5 ch
primo

Part-of-speech tell for prato / primo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: prato is anoun and primoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6223, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prato is recorded at frequency rank #3,431, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɾa.tu/. primo is at rank #2,792, tagged as anadj.

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 6223, this pair ranks #68,247 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of prato vs primo

Shared letters: opr. Private to "prato": at. Private to "primo": im.

"prato" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "primo" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pratopprato · praot · pratto · prrato · prtao · rpato
  • primopirmo · pprimo · primmo · priom · prmio · prrimo · rpimo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "prato" and "primo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prato" is a noun and "primo" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "prato" or "primo" show up more?
"primo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,792 in our Portuguese list, against #3,431 for "prato". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "prato" vs "primo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prato" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "primo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,247 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prato" and "primo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pluto vs prato". 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 #68,247 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