vagemvsvirgemConfusable pair

Quick tell: vagem is a noun, virgem is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#45,639
“vagem” frequency rank
#3,241
“virgem” frequency rank
48880
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vagem virgem
Definition fruto das leguminosas diz-se de pessoa que nunca teve relações sexuais, ou animal que nunca acasalou

Letter map: vagem vs virgem

Shared letters muted; letters that set vagem and virgem apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. vagem runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against virgem's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
vagem
6 ch
virgem

Part-of-speech tell for vagem / virgem

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vagem is anoun and virgemanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48880, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vagem is recorded at frequency rank #45,639, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈva.ʒɐ̃j̃/. virgem is at rank #3,241, tagged as anadj.

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 48880, this pair ranks #16,246 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vagem vs virgem

Shared letters: egmv. Private to "vagem": a. Private to "virgem": ir.

"vagem" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "virgem" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vagem ← avgem · vaegm · vagemm · vaggem · vagme · vgaem · vvagem
  • virgem ← ivrgem · vigrem · viregm · virgemm · virggem · virgme · virrgem · vrigem

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vagem" for "virgem" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vagem" is a noun and "virgem" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "vagem" or "virgem" show up more?
"virgem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,241 in our Portuguese list, against #45,639 for "vagem". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "vagem" and "virgem". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vagem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "virgem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,246 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vagem" and "virgem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vagem vs vargem". 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 #16,246 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