red vs ri, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“red” is an adjective and “ri” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,284
“red” frequency rank: #7,570
“ri” frequency rank: 10854
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	red	ri
Definition	vermelho, encarnado	para, contra

Letter map: red vs ri

Shared letters muted; letters that set red and ri apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

red

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for red / ri

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: red is anadjective and riapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10854, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

red is recorded at frequency rank #3,284, classified as anadj, pronounced /red/. ri is at rank #7,570, tagged as aprep.

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 10854, this pair ranks #62,129 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of red vs ri

Shared letters: r. Private to "red": de. Private to "ri": i.

"red" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "ri" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "red" for "ri" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "red" is an adjective and "ri" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "red" or "ri"?

"red" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,284 in our Portuguese list, against #7,570 for "ri". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "red" vs "ri" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "red" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ri" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #62,129 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"red" and "ri" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rabi vs ri". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #62,129 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.