afetovsatentoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,612
“afeto” frequency rank
#7,864
“atento” frequency rank
17476
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afeto atento
Definition à feição, afeiçoado; dedicado; específico para: que presta atenção

Where the eye mixes afeto and atento

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
afeto
6 ch
atento

Look-alike desk: afeto vs atento

A purely visual mix-up. afeto (/ɐ.ˈfɛ.tu/) and atento (/ɐ.ˈtẽ.tu/) 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 17476, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afeto is recorded at frequency rank #9,612, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈfɛ.tu/. atento is at rank #7,864, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtẽ.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 17476, this pair ranks #53,760 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of afeto vs atento

Shared letters: aeot. Private to "afeto": f. Private to "atento": n.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afetoaefto · afeot · afetto · affeto · afteo · faeto
  • atentoaetnto · atennto · atenot · atentto · atetno · atneto · attento · taento

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "afeto" and "atento" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɐ.ˈfɛ.tu/ versus /ɐ.ˈtẽ.tu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "afeto" or "atento" show up more?
"atento" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,864 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "afeto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atento" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,760 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afeto" and "atento" 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 #53,760 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