afraidvsarraiaTell them apart

Quick tell: afraid is a adjective, arraia is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“afraid” is an adjective and “arraia” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,853
“afraid” frequency rank
#43,277
“arraia” frequency rank
79130
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afraid arraia
Definition com medo; temeroso o mesmo que raia (peixe)

Letter map: afraid vs arraia

Shared letters muted; letters that set afraid and arraia apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
afraid
6 ch
arraia

Grammar separator: afraid vs arraia

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: afraid is anadjective and arraiaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79130, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afraid is recorded at frequency rank #35,853, classified as anadj. arraia is at rank #43,277, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈRaj.ɐ/.

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 79130, this pair ranks #1,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of afraid vs arraia

Shared letters: air. Private to "afraid": df. Private to "arraia": -.

"afraid" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC  ·  "arraia" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afraidafarid · affraid · afradi · afraidd · afriad · afrraid · arfaid · faraid
  • arraiaaraia · araria · arraai · arriaa · raraia

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "afraid" and "arraia" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "afraid" is an adjective and "arraia" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "afraid" vs "arraia" - which ranks higher?
"afraid" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,853 in our Portuguese list, against #43,277 for "arraia". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "afraid" and "arraia".

  • Full dictionary entry for "afraid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arraia" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,545 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afraid" and "arraia" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arraia vs arriba". 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 #1,545 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