reaçãovsreatarWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#1,864
“reação” frequency rank
#46,531
“reatar” frequency rank
48395
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reação reatar
Definition ação provocada em razão de uma outra anteriormente ocorrida atar de novo

Where the eye mixes reação and reatar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. reação (CVVCVV) and reatar (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
reação
6 ch
reatar

Look-alike desk: reação vs reatar

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reação is /ʀja.ˈsɐ̃w̃/ while reatar is /Rjɐ.ˈtaɾ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48395, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reação is recorded at frequency rank #1,864, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʀja.ˈsɐ̃w̃/. reatar is at rank #46,531, tagged as averb, pronounced /Rjɐ.ˈtaɾ/.

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 48395, this pair ranks #16,776 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of reação vs reatar

Shared letters: aer. Private to "reação": oãç. Private to "reatar": t.

"reação" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "reatar" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • reatar ← eratar · raetar · reaatr · reatarr · reatra · reattar · retaar · rreatar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "reação" and "reatar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reação" is a noun and "reatar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "reação" or "reatar" show up more?
"reação" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,864 in our Portuguese list, against #46,531 for "reatar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "reação" and "reatar" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "reação" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reatar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,776 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reação" and "reatar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reatar vs recear". 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 #16,776 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