propensãovspropensoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#29,477
“propensão” frequency rank
#36,175
“propenso” frequency rank
65652
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature propensão propenso
Definition ato ou efeito de propender inclinado

Letter map: propensão vs propenso

Shared letters muted; letters that set propensão and propenso apart highlighted. Shared run: 8. propensão runs 9 letters (CCVCVCCVV) against propenso's 8 (CCVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
propensão
8 ch
propenso

Part-of-speech tell for propensão / propenso

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: propensão is anoun and propensoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65652, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

propensão is recorded at frequency rank #29,477, classified as anoun. propenso is at rank #36,175, tagged as anadj, pronounced /pɾu.ˈpẽ.su/.

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 65652, this pair ranks #5,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of propensão vs propenso

Shared letters: enoprs. Private to "propensão": ã. Private to "propenso": -.

"propensão" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCCVV  ·  "propenso" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • propenso ← porpenso · ppropenso · proepnso · propennso · propenos · propensso · propesno · propneso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "propensão" for "propenso" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "propensão" is a noun and "propenso" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "propensão" vs "propenso" - which ranks higher?
"propensão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,477 in our Portuguese list, against #36,175 for "propenso". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "propensão" and "propenso".

  • Full dictionary entry for "propensão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "propenso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "propensão" and "propenso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "propensão vs propulsão". 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 #5,290 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