vãovsVascoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#253
“vão” frequency rank
#3,115
“Vasco” frequency rank
3368
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vão Vasco
Definition vazio prenome masculino

Letter map: vão vs Vasco

Shared letters muted; letters that set vão and Vasco apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. vão runs 3 letters (CVV) against Vasco's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
vão
5 ch
Vasco

Role in the sentence - vão and Vasco

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vão is anadjective and Vascoanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3368, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vão is recorded at frequency rank #253, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈvɐ̃w̃/ [ˈvɐ̃ʊ̯̃]. Vasco is at rank #3,115, 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 3368, this pair ranks #71,792 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of vão vs Vasco

Shared letters: ov. Private to "vão": ã. Private to "Vasco": acs.

"vão" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "Vasco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Vasco ← avsco · vacso · vascco · vasoc · vassco · vsaco · vvasco

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vão" for "Vasco" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vão" is an adjective and "Vasco" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vão" vs "Vasco" - which ranks higher?
"vão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #253 in our Portuguese list, against #3,115 for "Vasco". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "vão" vs "Vasco" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Vasco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,792 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vão" and "Vasco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vão 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 #71,792 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