tam vs tão, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#12,345
“tam” frequency rank: #119
“tão” frequency rank: 12464
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	tam	tão
Definition	lá, aí, ali, acolá	tanto, com tal intensidade

Letter map: tam vs tão

Shared letters muted; letters that set tam and tão apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

tam

3 ch

tão

Pair insight - tam / tão

tam and tão 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 12464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tam is recorded at frequency rank #12,345, classified as anadv. tão is at rank #119, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈtɐ̃w̃/.

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 12464, this pair ranks #60,105 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tam vs tão

Shared letters: t. Private to "tam": am. Private to "tão": oã.

"tam" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "tão" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tam" for "tão" ever safe?

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 "tam" or "tão" show up more?

"tão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #119 in our Portuguese list, against #12,345 for "tam". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "tam" vs "tão" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "tam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #60,105 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"tam" and "tão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tam vs tampo". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #60,105 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.