apagadovsapagarWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: apagado is a adjective, apagar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“apagado” is an adjective and “apagar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,658
“apagado” frequency rank
#4,285
“apagar” frequency rank
17943
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature apagado apagar
Definition extinto fazer desaparecer (raspando, etc.)

Letter map: apagado vs apagar

Shared letters muted; letters that set apagado and apagar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. apagado runs 7 letters (VCVCVCV) against apagar's 6 (VCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
apagado
6 ch
apagar

Part-of-speech tell for apagado / apagar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: apagado is anadjective and apagaraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17943, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apagado is recorded at frequency rank #13,658, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.pɐ.ˈɡa.du/. apagar is at rank #4,285, tagged as averb.

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 17943, this pair ranks #53,171 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of apagado vs apagar

Shared letters: agp. Private to "apagado": do. Private to "apagar": r.

"apagado" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV  ·  "apagar" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • apagado ← aapgado · apaagdo · apagaddo · apagaod · apagdao · apaggado · apgaado · appagado
  • apagar ← aapgar · apaagr · apagarr · apaggar · apagra · apgaar · appagar · paagar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "apagado" for "apagar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "apagado" is an adjective and "apagar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "apagado" vs "apagar" - which ranks higher?
"apagar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,285 in our Portuguese list, against #13,658 for "apagado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "apagado" and "apagar".

  • Full dictionary entry for "apagado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "apagar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,171 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apagado" and "apagar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apagar vs aplacar". 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 #53,171 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