afimvsaliWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: afim is a adjective, ali is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“afim” is an adjective and “ali” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,118
“afim” frequency rank
#593
“ali” frequency rank
10711
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afim ali
Definition igual, semelhante naquele lugar

Where the eye mixes afim and ali

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
afim
3 ch
ali

Look-alike desk: afim vs ali

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: afim is /ɐ.ˈfĩ/ while ali is /ɐ.ˈli/. 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 (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10711, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afim is recorded at frequency rank #10,118, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈfĩ/. ali is at rank #593, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ɐ.ˈli/.

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 10711, this pair ranks #62,314 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of afim vs ali

Shared letters: ai. Private to "afim": fm. Private to "ali": l.

"afim" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ali" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afimaffim · afimm · afmi · aifm · faim

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "afim" for "ali" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "afim" is an adjective and "ali" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "afim" or "ali"?
"ali" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #593 in our Portuguese list, against #10,118 for "afim". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "afim" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ali" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,314 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afim" and "ali" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afã vs afim". 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 #62,314 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