vilãovsviroWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#7,232
“vilão” frequency rank
#20,468
“viro” frequency rank
27700
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vilão viro
Definition relativo ou pertencente à vila homem, indivíduo adulto do sexo masculino

Where the eye mixes vilão and viro

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vilão runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against viro's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
vilão
4 ch
viro

Visual trap between vilão and viro

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vilão is /bi.'laŋ/, /bi.'la.o/ ou /bi.'law/ while viro is /ˈvi.rɔ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27700, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vilão is recorded at frequency rank #7,232, classified as anadj, pronounced /bi.'laŋ/, /bi.'la.o/ ou /bi.'law/. 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 27700, this pair ranks #41,242 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vilão vs viro

Shared letters: iov. Private to "vilão": lã. Private to "viro": r.

"vilão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "viro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • viro ← ivro · vior · virro · vrio · vviro

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vilão" and "viro" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vilão" is an adjective and "viro" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vilão" vs "viro" - which ranks higher?
"vilão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,232 in our Portuguese list, against #20,468 for "viro". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vilão" 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 #41,242 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vilão" 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 #41,242 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