valevsvaraWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#576
“vale” frequency rank
#6,130
“vara” frequency rank
6706
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vale vara
Definition planície entre duas montanhas ou colinas haste fina e flexível

Letter map: vale vs vara

Shared letters muted; letters that set vale and vara apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
vale
4 ch
vara

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

vale and vara are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vale is recorded at frequency rank #576, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈva.lɨ/. vara is at rank #6,130, 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 6706, this pair ranks #67,661 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of vale vs vara

Shared letters: av. Private to "vale": el. Private to "vara": r.

"vale" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "vara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • valeavle · vael · vlae · vvale
  • varaavra · vaar · varra · vraa · vvara

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vale" and "vara" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "vale" or "vara"?
"vale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #576 in our Portuguese list, against #6,130 for "vara". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list