virvsvirilTell them apart

Quick tell: vir is a verb, viril is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#817
“vir” frequency rank
#35,397
“viril” frequency rank
36214
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vir viril
Definition transportar-se para o local onde está o interlocutor relativo ou próprio de homem

Letter map: vir vs viril

Shared letters muted; letters that set vir and viril apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. vir runs 3 letters (CVC) against viril's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
vir
5 ch
viril

Part-of-speech tell for vir / viril

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vir is averb and virilanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “vir” sits inside “viril”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36214, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vir is recorded at frequency rank #817, classified as averb. viril is at rank #35,397, tagged as anadj, pronounced /vi.ˈɾiɫ/.

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 36214, this pair ranks #30,653 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vir vs viril

Shared letters: irv. Private to "vir": -. Private to "viril": l.

"vir" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "viril" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • viril ← ivril · viirl · virill · virli · virril · vriil · vviril

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vir" and "viril" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vir" is a verb and "viril" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "vir" or "viril" show up more?
"vir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #817 in our Portuguese list, against #35,397 for "viril". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "vir" vs "viril" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "viril" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,653 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vir" and "viril" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "viril vs vitral". 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 #30,653 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