vulgarvsvulgoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#13,419
“vulgar” frequency rank
#20,753
“vulgo” frequency rank
34172
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vulgar vulgo
Definition relativo ou pertencente ao vulgo vulgarmente

Letter map: vulgar vs vulgo

Shared letters muted; letters that set vulgar and vulgo apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. vulgar runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against vulgo's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
vulgar
5 ch
vulgo

Part-of-speech tell for vulgar / vulgo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vulgar is anadjective and vulgoanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34172, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vulgar is recorded at frequency rank #13,419, classified as anadj, pronounced /vuɫ.ˈɡaɾ/. 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 34172, this pair ranks #33,172 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vulgar vs vulgo

Shared letters: gluv. Private to "vulgar": ar. Private to "vulgo": o.

"vulgar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "vulgo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vulgar ← uvlgar · vlugar · vuglar · vulagr · vulgarr · vulggar · vulgra · vullgar
  • vulgo ← uvlgo · vlugo · vuglo · vulggo · vullgo · vulog · vvulgo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vulgar" and "vulgo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vulgar" is an adjective and "vulgo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vulgar" or "vulgo"?
"vulgar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,419 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vulgar" 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 #33,172 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vulgar" 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 #33,172 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