tardavstardeTell them apart

Quick tell: tarda is a noun, tarde is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tarda” is a noun and “tarde” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,201
“tarda” frequency rank
#279
“tarde” frequency rank
18480
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tarda tarde
Definition tarde tardiamente, atrasado

Letter map: tarda vs tarde

Shared letters muted; letters that set tarda and tarde apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. tarda and tarde follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
tarda
5 ch
tarde

Part-of-speech tell for tarda / tarde

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tarda is anoun and tardeanadverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “tarda” becomes e in “tarde”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18480, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tarda is recorded at frequency rank #18,201, classified as anoun. tarde is at rank #279, tagged as anadv, pronounced /'tax.dʒɪ/.

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 18480, this pair ranks #52,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tarda vs tarde

Shared letters: adrt. Private to "tarda": -. Private to "tarde": e.

"tarda" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "tarde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tarda ← atrda · tadra · tarad · tardda · tarrda · trada · ttarda
  • tarde ← atrde · tadre · tardde · tared · tarrde · trade · ttarde

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tarda" for "tarde" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tarda" is a noun and "tarde" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tarda" or "tarde" show up more?
"tarde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #279 in our Portuguese list, against #18,201 for "tarda". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "tarda" vs "tarde" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tarda" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tarde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tarda" and "tarde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tarda vs turba". 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 #52,499 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