vagovsvamosWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#13,858
“vago” frequency rank
#207
“vamos” frequency rank
14065
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vago vamos
Definition sem um sentido bem definido primeira pessoa do plural do indicativo presente do verbo ir

Letter map: vago vs vamos

Shared letters muted; letters that set vago and vamos apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. vago runs 4 letters (CVCV) against vamos's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
vago
5 ch
vamos

Role in the sentence - vago and vamos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vago is anadjective and vamosaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14065, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vago is recorded at frequency rank #13,858, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈva.ɡu/. vamos is at rank #207, 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 14065, this pair ranks #58,119 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of vago vs vamos

Shared letters: aov. Private to "vago": g. Private to "vamos": ms.

"vago" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "vamos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vago ← avgo · vaggo · vaog · vgao · vvago
  • vamos ← avmos · vammos · vamoss · vamso · vaoms · vmaos · vvamos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vago" for "vamos" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vago" is an adjective and "vamos" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "vago" or "vamos" show up more?
"vamos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #207 in our Portuguese list, against #13,858 for "vago". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "vago" and "vamos".

  • Full dictionary entry for "vago" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vamos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,119 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vago" and "vamos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vago vs velo". 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 #58,119 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