vaivsvasWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: vai is a adjective, vas is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49
“vai” frequency rank
#38,077
“vas” frequency rank
38126
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vai vas
Definition relativo aos vais vaso

Letter map: vai vs vas

Shared letters muted; letters that set vai and vas apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
vai
3 ch
vas

Part-of-speech tell for vai / vas

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vai is anadjective and vasanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - i in “vai” becomes s in “vas”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38126, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vai is recorded at frequency rank #49, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈvaj/. vas is at rank #38,077, tagged as anoun.

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 38126, this pair ranks #28,388 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vai vs vas

Shared letters: av. Private to "vai": i. Private to "vas": s.

"vai" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "vas" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vai" for "vas" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vai" is an adjective and "vas" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vai" vs "vas" - which ranks higher?
"vai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #49 in our Portuguese list, against #38,077 for "vas". 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 "vai" and "vas".

  • Full dictionary entry for "vai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,388 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vai" and "vas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vas vs vet". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #28,388 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