AdamvsafãWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,033
“Adam” frequency rank
#47,702
“afã” frequency rank
51735
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Adam afã
Definition Adão azáfama; ânsia; lida:

Where the eye mixes Adam and afã

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. Adam runs 4 letters (VCVC) against afã's 3 (VCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Adam
3 ch
afã

Why the eye confuses Adam with afã

A purely visual mix-up. Adam (/ˈaːdam/.) and afã (/ɐ.ˈfɐ̃/) 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 51735, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Adam is recorded at frequency rank #4,033, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈaːdam/.. afã is at rank #47,702, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈfɐ̃/.

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 51735, this pair ranks #13,365 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Adam vs afã

Shared letters: a. Private to "Adam": dm. Private to "afã": fã.

"Adam" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "afã" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Adam ← aadm · adamm · addam · adma · daam

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Adam" and "afã" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈaːdam/. versus /ɐ.ˈfɐ̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "Adam" or "afã" show up more?
"Adam" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,033 in our Portuguese list, against #47,702 for "afã". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Adam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "afã" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,365 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Adam" and "afã" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs afã". 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 #13,365 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