trivsturnWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tri is a adjective, turn is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tri” is an adjective and “turn” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,982
“tri” frequency rank
#14,985
“turn” frequency rank
29967
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tri turn
Definition muito bom, legal; trilegal embrulhar

Letter map: tri vs turn

Shared letters muted; letters that set tri and turn apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
tri
4 ch
turn

Role in the sentence - tri and turn

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tri is anadjective and turnaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tri is recorded at frequency rank #14,982, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈtɾi/. turn is at rank #14,985, tagged as averb.

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 29967, this pair ranks #38,521 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tri vs turn

Shared letters: rt. Private to "tri": i. Private to "turn": nu.

"tri" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "turn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • turntrun · tturn · tunr · turnn · turrn · utrn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tri" for "turn" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tri" is an adjective and "turn" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tri" or "turn" show up more?
"tri" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,982 in our Portuguese list, against #14,985 for "turn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "tri" and "turn". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tri" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "turn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,521 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tri" and "turn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tufo vs turn". 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 #38,521 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