acertavsacertadoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#12,590
“acerta” frequency rank
#17,182
“acertado” frequency rank
29772
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acerta acertado
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo acertar ajustado; que foi combinado

Letter map: acerta vs acertado

Shared letters muted; letters that set acerta and acertado apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. acerta runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against acertado's 8 (VCVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
acerta
8 ch
acertado

Grammar separator: acerta vs acertado

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: acerta is averb and acertadoanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “acerta” sits inside “acertado”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29772, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acerta is recorded at frequency rank #12,590, classified as averb, pronounced /ɐ.ˈsɛɹ.tɐ/. acertado is at rank #17,182, tagged as anadj.

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 29772, this pair ranks #38,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acerta vs acertado

Shared letters: acert. Private to "acerta": -. Private to "acertado": do.

"acerta" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "acertado" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acerta ← accerta · acerat · acerrta · acertta · acetra · acreta · aecrta · caerta
  • acertado ← accertado · aceratdo · acerrtado · acertaddo · acertaod · acertdao · acerttado · acetrado

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "acerta" and "acertado" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acerta" is a verb and "acertado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "acerta" or "acertado" show up more?
"acerta" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,590 in our Portuguese list, against #17,182 for "acertado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "acerta" vs "acertado" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acerta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acertado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acerta" and "acertado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acertado vs achatado". 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 #38,799 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