pulovspuxoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#16,593
“pulo” frequency rank
#34,869
“puxo” frequency rank
51462
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pulo puxo
Definition ato de pular; salto pequeno primeira pessoa do singular do presente indicativo do verbo puxar

Where the eye mixes pulo and puxo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pulo
4 ch
puxo

Look-alike desk: pulo vs puxo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pulo is /ˈpu.lu/ while puxo is /ˈpu.ʃu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “pulo” becomes x in “puxo”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51462, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pulo is recorded at frequency rank #16,593, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpu.lu/. 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 51462, this pair ranks #13,579 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pulo vs puxo

Shared letters: opu. Private to "pulo": l. Private to "puxo": x.

"pulo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "puxo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pulopluo · ppulo · pullo · puol · uplo
  • puxoppuxo · puox · puxxo · pxuo · upxo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pulo" and "puxo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pulo" is a noun and "puxo" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "pulo" or "puxo" show up more?
"pulo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,593 in our Portuguese list, against #34,869 for "puxo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pulo" 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 #13,579 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pulo" 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 #13,579 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