acolávsaforaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,567
“acolá” frequency rank
#13,208
“afora” frequency rank
42775
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acolá afora
Definition em lugar afastado ( de quem fala e da pessoa com quem se fala) exteriormente

Where the eye mixes acolá and afora

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. acolá and afora follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
acolá
5 ch
afora

Why the eye confuses acolá with afora

A purely visual mix-up. acolá (/ɐ.ku.ˈla/) and afora ([a.ˈfɔ.ɾa]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42775, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acolá is recorded at frequency rank #29,567, classified as anadv, pronounced /ɐ.ku.ˈla/. afora is at rank #13,208, tagged as anadv, pronounced [a.ˈfɔ.ɾa].

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 42775, this pair ranks #22,957 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acolá vs afora

Shared letters: ao. Private to "acolá": clá. Private to "afora": fr.

"acolá" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "afora" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afora ← affora · afoar · aforra · afroa · aofra · faora

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acolá" for "afora" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɐ.ku.ˈla/ versus [a.ˈfɔ.ɾa]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "acolá" or "afora"?
"afora" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,208 in our Portuguese list, against #29,567 for "acolá". 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 "acolá" and "afora" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acolá" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "afora" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,957 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acolá" and "afora" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acolá vs ampola". 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 #22,957 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