afinadovsagitadoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#44,673
“afinado” frequency rank
#14,506
“agitado” frequency rank
59179
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afinado agitado
Definition que se afinou; que está no devido tom, (falando-se de instrumentos músicos) abalado

Where the eye mixes afinado and agitado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. afinado and agitado follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
afinado
7 ch
agitado

Look-alike desk: afinado vs agitado

A purely visual mix-up. afinado (/ɐ.fi.ˈna.du/) and agitado ([a.ʒi.ˈta.do]) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59179, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afinado is recorded at frequency rank #44,673, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.fi.ˈna.du/. agitado is at rank #14,506, tagged as anadj, pronounced [a.ʒi.ˈta.do].

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 59179, this pair ranks #8,321 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of afinado vs agitado

Shared letters: adio. Private to "afinado": fn. Private to "agitado": gt.

"afinado" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV  ·  "agitado" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afinadoaffinado · afiando · afinaddo · afinaod · afindao · afinnado · afniado · aifnado
  • agitadoaggitado · agiatdo · agitaddo · agitaod · agitdao · agittado · agtiado · aigtado

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "afinado" and "agitado" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɐ.fi.ˈna.du/ versus [a.ʒi.ˈta.do]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "afinado" or "agitado" show up more?
"agitado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,506 in our Portuguese list, against #44,673 for "afinado". 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 "afinado" and "agitado" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "afinado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "agitado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,321 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afinado" and "agitado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afinado vs afinar". 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 #8,321 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