provspuxoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pro is a preposition, puxo is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pro” is a preposition and “puxo” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,173
“pro” frequency rank
#34,869
“puxo” frequency rank
36042
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pro puxo
Definition para primeira pessoa do singular do presente indicativo do verbo puxar

Where the eye mixes pro and puxo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
pro
4 ch
puxo

Look-alike desk: pro vs puxo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pro is /ˈprɔ/ ouvir^(fonte ?) while puxo is /ˈpu.ʃu/. 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 (preposition vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36042, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pro is recorded at frequency rank #1,173, classified as aprep, pronounced /ˈprɔ/ ouvir^(fonte ?). puxo is at rank #34,869, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpu.ʃu/.

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 36042, this pair ranks #30,858 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pro vs puxo

Shared letters: op. Private to "pro": r. Private to "puxo": ux.

"pro" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "puxo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puxoppuxo · puox · puxxo · pxuo · upxo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pro" and "puxo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pro" is a preposition and "puxo" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pro" or "puxo" show up more?
"pro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,173 in our Portuguese list, against #34,869 for "puxo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puxo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,858 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pro" and "puxo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pix vs puxo". 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 #30,858 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