uai vs útil, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“uai” is an intj and “útil” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,566
“uai” frequency rank: #2,549
“útil” frequency rank: 40115
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	uai	útil
Definition	expressa surpresa, espanto ou suscita dúvida	que pode ter ou tem algum uso ou é necessário:

Letter map: uai vs útil

Shared letters muted; letters that set uai and útil apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

uai

4 ch

útil

Grammar separator: uai vs útil

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: uai is anintj and útilanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40115, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

uai is recorded at frequency rank #37,566, classified as anintj. útil is at rank #2,549, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈu.tʃiw].

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 40115, this pair ranks #26,047 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of uai vs útil

Shared letters: i. Private to "uai": au. Private to "útil": ltú.

"uai" · 3 letters · shape VVV · "útil" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "uai" for "útil" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "uai" or "útil" show up more?

"útil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,549 in our Portuguese list, against #37,566 for "uai". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "uai" and "útil". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "uai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "útil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #26,047 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"uai" and "útil" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ú vs uai". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #26,047 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.