rasavsrosaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#23,795
“rasa” frequency rank
#1,551
“rosa” frequency rank
25346
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rasa rosa
Definition instrumento de formato cilíndrico usado na medição de secos cor-de-rosa, que tem coloração rosácea

Where the eye mixes rasa and rosa

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

4 ch
rasa
4 ch
rosa

Why the eye confuses rasa with rosa

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rasa is /ˈχa.zɐ/ while rosa is /ˈχɔ.zə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “rasa” becomes o in “rosa”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25346, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rasa is recorded at frequency rank #23,795, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈχa.zɐ/. rosa is at rank #1,551, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈχɔ.zə/.

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 25346, this pair ranks #43,996 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rasa vs rosa

Shared letters: ars. Private to "rasa": -. Private to "rosa": o.

"rasa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "rosa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rasaarsa · raas · rassa · rrasa · rsaa
  • rosaorsa · roas · rossa · rrosa · rsoa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rasa" for "rosa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rasa" is a noun and "rosa" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "rasa" or "rosa" show up more?
"rosa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,551 in our Portuguese list, against #23,795 for "rasa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "rasa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rosa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,996 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rasa" and "rosa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rabi vs rasa". 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 #43,996 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