riscovsroscaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,084
“risco” frequency rank
#29,898
“rosca” frequency rank
30982
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature risco rosca
Definition delineamento; modelo; plano; planta; sulco; traçado; traço coisa redonda e roliça que, ao fechar-se, forma um círculo ou um oval, deixando no meio um espaço vazio

Where the eye mixes risco and rosca

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

5 ch
risco
5 ch
rosca

Why the eye confuses risco with rosca

A purely visual mix-up. risco (/ˈRiʃ.ku/) and rosca (/ˈRoʃ.kɐ/) 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 30982, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

risco is recorded at frequency rank #1,084, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈRiʃ.ku/. rosca is at rank #29,898, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈRoʃ.kɐ/.

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 30982, this pair ranks #37,242 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of risco vs rosca

Shared letters: cors. Private to "risco": i. Private to "rosca": a.

"risco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "rosca" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • riscoirsco · ricso · riscco · risoc · rissco · rrisco · rsico
  • roscaorsca · rocsa · rosac · roscca · rossca · rrosca · rsoca

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "risco" for "rosca" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈRiʃ.ku/ versus /ˈRoʃ.kɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "risco" vs "rosca" - which ranks higher?
"risco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,084 in our Portuguese list, against #29,898 for "rosca". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "risco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rosca" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,242 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "risco" and "rosca" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rasca vs rosca". 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 #37,242 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