receção vs relação, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“receção” and “relação” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#37,068
“receção” frequency rank: #381
“relação” frequency rank: 37449
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	receção	relação
Definition	vide recepção	relacionamento

Letter map: receção vs relação

Shared letters muted; letters that set receção and relação apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. receção and relação follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch

receção

7 ch

relação

Pair insight - receção / relação

receção and relação are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

receção is recorded at frequency rank #37,068, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʀəsɛˈsɐ̃w̃/. relação is at rank #381, tagged as anoun.

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 37449, this pair ranks #29,165 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of receção vs relação

Shared letters: eorãç. Private to "receção": c. Private to "relação": al.

"receção" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV · "relação" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "receção" and "relação" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "receção" or "relação" show up more?

"relação" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #381 in our Portuguese list, against #37,068 for "receção". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "receção" and "relação".

Full dictionary entry for "receção" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "relação" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #29,165 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"receção" and "relação" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "receção vs receoso". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #29,165 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.