afogarvsaforaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: afogar is a verb, afora is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“afogar” is a verb and “afora” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,247
“afogar” frequency rank
#13,208
“afora” frequency rank
28455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afogar afora
Definition matar alguém por afogamento, asfixia ou estrangulamento exteriormente

Where the eye mixes afogar and afora

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

6 ch
afogar
5 ch
afora

Look-alike desk: afogar vs afora

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: afogar is /ɐ.fu.ˈɡaɾ/ while afora is [a.ˈfɔ.ɾa]. 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 (verb vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afogar is recorded at frequency rank #15,247, classified as averb, pronounced /ɐ.fu.ˈɡaɾ/. 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 28455, this pair ranks #40,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of afogar vs afora

Shared letters: afor. Private to "afogar": g. Private to "afora": -.

"afogar" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "afora" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afogaraffogar · afgoar · afoagr · afogarr · afoggar · afogra · aofgar · faogar
  • aforaaffora · afoar · aforra · afroa · aofra · faora

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "afogar" for "afora" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "afogar" is a verb and "afora" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "afogar" or "afora" show up more?
"afora" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,208 in our Portuguese list, against #15,247 for "afogar". 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 "afogar" and "afora" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "afogar" 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 #40,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afogar" and "afora" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afã vs afora". 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 #40,355 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