recibovsrecifeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#19,829
“recibo” frequency rank
#2,907
“recife” frequency rank
22736
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recibo recife
Definition declaração escrita de se ter recebido algo; quitação formação rochosa encontrada no oceano, formada por fragmentos de animais marinhos

Where the eye mixes recibo and recife

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. recibo and recife follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
recibo
6 ch
recife

Visual trap between recibo and recife

A purely visual mix-up. recibo (/Rɨ.ˈsi.bu/) and recife (/xe.ˈsi.fi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22736, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recibo is recorded at frequency rank #19,829, classified as anoun, pronounced /Rɨ.ˈsi.bu/. recife is at rank #2,907, tagged as anoun, pronounced /xe.ˈsi.fi/.

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 22736, this pair ranks #47,240 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of recibo vs recife

Shared letters: ceir. Private to "recibo": bo. Private to "recife": f.

"recibo" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "recife" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recibo ← ercibo · rceibo · recbio · reccibo · recibbo · reciob · reicbo · rrecibo
  • recife ← ercife · rceife · reccife · recfie · recief · reciffe · reicfe · rrecife

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "recibo" and "recife" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/Rɨ.ˈsi.bu/ versus /xe.ˈsi.fi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "recibo" or "recife"?
"recife" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,907 in our Portuguese list, against #19,829 for "recibo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recibo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "recife" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #47,240 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recibo" and "recife" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rácio vs recibo". 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 #47,240 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