vilãovsvisarWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#7,232
“vilão” frequency rank
#46,613
“visar” frequency rank
53845
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vilão visar
Definition relativo ou pertencente à vila dirigir a vista ou o olhar para

Where the eye mixes vilão and visar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. vilão (CVCVV) and visar (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
vilão
5 ch
visar

Why the eye confuses vilão with visar

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vilão is /bi.'laŋ/, /bi.'la.o/ ou /bi.'law/ while visar is /vi.ˈzaɹ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53845, 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/. visar is at rank #46,613, tagged as averb, pronounced /vi.ˈzaɹ/.

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 53845, this pair ranks #11,738 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vilão vs visar

Shared letters: iv. Private to "vilão": loã. Private to "visar": ars.

"vilão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "visar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • visar ← ivsar · viasr · visarr · visra · vissar · vsiar · vvisar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vilão" for "visar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vilão" is an adjective and "visar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vilão" or "visar"?
"vilão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,232 in our Portuguese list, against #46,613 for "visar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "vilão" and "visar" 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 "visar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,738 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vilão" and "visar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "visada vs visar". 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 #11,738 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