vivsviroTell them apart

Quick tell: vi is a pronoun, viro is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#339
“vi” frequency rank
#20,468
“viro” frequency rank
20807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vi viro
Definition tu, você, pronome da segunda pessoa do singular homem, indivíduo adulto do sexo masculino

Where the eye mixes vi and viro

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

2 ch
vi
4 ch
viro

Why the eye confuses vi with viro

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vi is /'vi/ while viro is /ˈvi.rɔ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “vi” sits inside “viro”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vi is recorded at frequency rank #339, classified as apron, pronounced /'vi/. viro is at rank #20,468, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈvi.rɔ/.

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 20807, this pair ranks #49,617 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vi vs viro

Shared letters: iv. Private to "vi": -. Private to "viro": or.

"vi" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "viro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • viroivro · vior · virro · vrio · vviro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vi" for "viro" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vi" is a pronoun and "viro" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vi" or "viro"?
"vi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #339 in our Portuguese list, against #20,468 for "viro". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "vi" and "viro" 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 "viro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,617 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vi" and "viro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "velo vs viro". 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 #49,617 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