tilvstraWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#44,136
“til” frequency rank
#27,694
“tra” frequency rank
71830
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature til tra
Definition sinal diacrítico (~) utilizado para modificar a pronúncia de determinadas letras no português (indicando nasalização) e em alguns outros idiomas ( bretão ...) coisa

Where the eye mixes til and tra

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
til
3 ch
tra

Visual trap between til and tra

A purely visual mix-up. til (/ˈʧiw/) and tra (/tʀa/) 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 71830, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

til is recorded at frequency rank #44,136, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈʧiw/. tra is at rank #27,694, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tʀa/.

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 71830, this pair ranks #3,234 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of til vs tra

Shared letters: t. Private to "til": il. Private to "tra": ar.

"til" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "tra" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "til" for "tra" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈʧiw/ versus /tʀa/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "til" vs "tra" - which ranks higher?
"tra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,694 in our Portuguese list, against #44,136 for "til". 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 "til" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,234 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "til" and "tra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tifo vs til". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #3,234 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