tomarvstóraxWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tomar is a verb, tórax is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tomar” is a verb and “tórax” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#611
“tomar” frequency rank
#16,637
“tórax” frequency rank
17248
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tomar tórax
Definition agarrar conjunto que compreende a cavidade torácica, órgãos nela contidos, e paredes que circunscrevem essa cavidade, sita entre o pescoço, acima, e o abdome, abaixo; peito

Where the eye mixes tomar and tórax

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
tomar
5 ch
tórax

Look-alike desk: tomar vs tórax

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tomar is /tu.ˈmaɾ/ while tórax is /ˈtɔ.ɾa̝ks/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17248, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tomar is recorded at frequency rank #611, classified as averb, pronounced /tu.ˈmaɾ/. tórax is at rank #16,637, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɔ.ɾa̝ks/.

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 17248, this pair ranks #54,050 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tomar vs tórax

Shared letters: art. Private to "tomar": mo. Private to "tórax": .

"tomar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "tórax" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tomarotmar · tmoar · toamr · tomarr · tommar · tomra · ttomar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tomar" and "tórax" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tomar" is a verb and "tórax" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tomar" or "tórax" show up more?
"tomar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #611 in our Portuguese list, against #16,637 for "tórax". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "tomar" and "tórax" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tomar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tórax" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,050 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tomar" and "tórax" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tórax vs tosa". 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 #54,050 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