tumbavsturboTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,402
“tumba” frequency rank
#12,160
“turbo” frequency rank
29562
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tumba turbo
Definition lápide sepulcral dispositivo colocado em motores para aumentar a potência

Where the eye mixes tumba and turbo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tumba and turbo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
tumba
5 ch
turbo

Look-alike desk: tumba vs turbo

A purely visual mix-up. tumba (/ˈtũ.bɐ/) and turbo (/ˈtuɾ.bu/) 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 29562, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tumba is recorded at frequency rank #17,402, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtũ.bɐ/. turbo is at rank #12,160, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtuɾ.bu/.

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 29562, this pair ranks #39,022 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tumba vs turbo

Shared letters: btu. Private to "tumba": am. Private to "turbo": or.

"tumba" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "turbo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tumba ← tmuba · ttumba · tubma · tumab · tumbba · tummba · utmba
  • turbo ← trubo · tturbo · tubro · turbbo · turob · turrbo · utrbo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tumba" and "turbo" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈtũ.bɐ/ versus /ˈtuɾ.bu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tumba" or "turbo" show up more?
"turbo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,160 in our Portuguese list, against #17,402 for "tumba". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tumba" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "turbo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,022 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tumba" and "turbo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tumba vs tuna". 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 #39,022 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