whitevswideConfusable pair

Which to use

“white” and “wide” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#4,870
“white” frequency rank
#11,980
“wide” frequency rank
16850
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature white wide
Definition branco largo

Where the eye mixes white and wide

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
white
4 ch
wide

Visual trap between white and wide

A purely visual mix-up. white (/(h)waɪt/ ouvir^(fonte ?)) and wide (/waɪd/, /wɑed/ (Austrália)) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16850, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

white is recorded at frequency rank #4,870, classified as anadj, pronounced /(h)waɪt/ ouvir^(fonte ?). wide is at rank #11,980, tagged as anadj, pronounced /waɪd/, /wɑed/ (Austrália).

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 16850, this pair ranks #54,586 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of white vs wide

Shared letters: eiw. Private to "white": ht. Private to "wide": d.

"white" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "wide" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whitehwite · whhite · whiet · whitte · whtie · wihte · wwhite
  • wideiwde · wdie · widde · wied · wwide

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "white" and "wide" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/(h)waɪt/ ouvir^(fonte ?) versus /waɪd/, /wɑed/ (Austrália)) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "white" or "wide"?
"white" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,870 in our Portuguese list, against #11,980 for "wide". 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 "white" and "wide" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "white" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wide" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,586 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "white" and "wide" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wide vs wir". 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 #54,586 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