talovstapWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,788
“talo” frequency rank
#22,172
“tap” frequency rank
54960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talo tap
Definition caule de planta torneira

Where the eye mixes talo and tap

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. talo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against tap's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
talo
3 ch
tap

Why the eye confuses talo with tap

A purely visual mix-up. talo (/ˈta.lu/) and tap (/tæp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talo is recorded at frequency rank #32,788, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈta.lu/. tap is at rank #22,172, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tæp/.

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 54960, this pair ranks #10,900 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of talo vs tap

Shared letters: at. Private to "talo": lo. Private to "tap": p.

"talo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tap" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • talo ← tallo · taol · tlao · ttalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "talo" for "tap" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈta.lu/ versus /tæp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "talo" vs "tap" - which ranks higher?
"tap" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,172 in our Portuguese list, against #32,788 for "talo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "talo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tap" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,900 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talo" and "tap" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talo vs tufo". 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 #10,900 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