acertovsafetoTell them apart

Quick tell: acerto is a noun, afeto is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“acerto” is a noun and “afeto” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,134
“acerto” frequency rank
#9,612
“afeto” frequency rank
18746
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acerto afeto
Definition ato ou efeito de fazer certo ou realizar corretamente à feição, afeiçoado; dedicado; específico para:

Where the eye mixes acerto and afeto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. acerto runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against afeto's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
acerto
5 ch
afeto

Look-alike desk: acerto vs afeto

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: acerto is /ɐ.ˈseɾ.tu/ while afeto is /ɐ.ˈfɛ.tu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18746, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acerto is recorded at frequency rank #9,134, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈseɾ.tu/. afeto is at rank #9,612, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈfɛ.tu/.

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 18746, this pair ranks #52,157 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acerto vs afeto

Shared letters: aeot. Private to "acerto": cr. Private to "afeto": f.

"acerto" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "afeto" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acerto ← accerto · acerot · acerrto · acertto · acetro · acreto · aecrto · caerto
  • afeto ← aefto · afeot · afetto · affeto · afteo · faeto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "acerto" and "afeto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acerto" is a noun and "afeto" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "acerto" vs "afeto" - which ranks higher?
"acerto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,134 in our Portuguese list, against #9,612 for "afeto". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "acerto" and "afeto" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acerto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "afeto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,157 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acerto" and "afeto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aceno vs afeto". 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 #52,157 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