vi vs vil, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“vi” is a pronoun and “vil” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#339
“vi” frequency rank: #26,593
“vil” frequency rank: 26932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	vi	vil
Definition	tu, você, pronome da segunda pessoa do singular	reles

Where the eye mixes vi and vil

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

vil

Look-alike desk: vi vs vil

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vi is /'vi/ while vil is /ˈviɫ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “vi” sits inside “vil”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vi is recorded at frequency rank #339, classified as apron, pronounced /'vi/. vil is at rank #26,593, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈviɫ/.

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 26932, this pair ranks #42,123 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vi vs vil

Shared letters: iv. Private to "vi": -. Private to "vil": l.

"vi" · 2 letters · shape CV · "vil" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vi" and "vil" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vi" is a pronoun and "vil" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "vi" vs "vil" - which ranks higher?

"vi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #339 in our Portuguese list, against #26,593 for "vil". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "vi" and "vil" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

Full dictionary entry for "vi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "vil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #42,123 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"vi" and "vil" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "velo vs vil". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #42,123 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.