rascavsriscoTell them apart

Quick tell: rasca is a adjective, risco is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38,878
“rasca” frequency rank
#1,084
“risco” frequency rank
39962
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rasca risco
Definition de má qualidade delineamento; modelo; plano; planta; sulco; traçado; traço

Where the eye mixes rasca and risco

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

5 ch
rasca
5 ch
risco

Look-alike desk: rasca vs risco

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rasca is /ˈRaʃ.kɐ/ while risco is /ˈRiʃ.ku/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39962, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rasca is recorded at frequency rank #38,878, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈRaʃ.kɐ/. risco is at rank #1,084, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈRiʃ.ku/.

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 39962, this pair ranks #26,207 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rasca vs risco

Shared letters: crs. Private to "rasca": a. Private to "risco": io.

"rasca" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "risco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rascaarsca · racsa · rasac · rascca · rassca · rrasca · rsaca
  • riscoirsco · ricso · riscco · risoc · rissco · rrisco · rsico

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rasca" for "risco" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rasca" is an adjective and "risco" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "rasca" or "risco" show up more?
"risco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,084 in our Portuguese list, against #38,878 for "rasca". 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 "rasca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "risco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,207 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rasca" and "risco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rapa vs rasca". 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 #26,207 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