tolo vs tordo, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“tolo” is an adjective and “tordo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,929
“tolo” frequency rank: #40,815
“tordo” frequency rank: 58744
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	tolo	tordo
Definition	sem inteligência ou sem juízo	gênero de pássaros dentirrostros

Letter map: tolo vs tordo

Shared letters muted; letters that set tolo and tordo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. tolo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against tordo's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch

tolo

5 ch

tordo

Part-of-speech tell for tolo / tordo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tolo is anadjective and tordoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58744, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tolo is recorded at frequency rank #17,929, classified as anadj. tordo is at rank #40,815, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtoɾ.du/.

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 58744, this pair ranks #8,568 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tolo vs tordo

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tolo": l. Private to "tordo": dr.

"tolo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "tordo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

tolo ← otlo · tloo · tollo · ttolo
tordo ← otrdo · todro · torddo · torod · torrdo · trodo · ttordo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tolo" for "tordo" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tolo" is an adjective and "tordo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tolo" or "tordo" show up more?

"tolo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,929 in our Portuguese list, against #40,815 for "tordo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tolo" and "tordo".

Full dictionary entry for "tolo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tordo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #8,568 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"tolo" and "tordo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tordo vs turvo". 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 #8,568 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.