vilãovsvulgoTell them apart

Quick tell: vilão is a adjective, vulgo is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,232
“vilão” frequency rank
#20,753
“vulgo” frequency rank
27985
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vilão vulgo
Definition relativo ou pertencente à vila vulgarmente

Letter map: vilão vs vulgo

Shared letters muted; letters that set vilão and vulgo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
vilão
5 ch
vulgo

Part-of-speech tell for vilão / vulgo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vilão is anadjective and vulgoanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27985, 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/. vulgo is at rank #20,753, tagged as anadv.

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 27985, this pair ranks #40,905 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vilão vs vulgo

Shared letters: lov. Private to "vilão": . Private to "vulgo": gu.

"vilão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "vulgo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vulgouvlgo · vlugo · vuglo · vulggo · vullgo · vulog · vvulgo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vilão" for "vulgo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vilão" is an adjective and "vulgo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vilão" or "vulgo"?
"vilão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,232 in our Portuguese list, against #20,753 for "vulgo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "vilão" vs "vulgo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vilão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vulgo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,905 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vilão" and "vulgo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "velo vs vulgo". 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 #40,905 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