apatiavsapáticoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: apatia is a noun, apático is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#26,626
“apatia” frequency rank
#49,297
“apático” frequency rank
75923
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature apatia apático
Definition ausência de paixão, emoção ou excitação que apresenta apatia; indolente

Letter map: apatia vs apático

Shared letters muted; letters that set apatia and apático apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. apatia runs 6 letters (VCVCVV) against apático's 7 (VCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
apatia
7 ch
apático

Part-of-speech tell for apatia / apático

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: apatia is anoun and apáticoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75923, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apatia is recorded at frequency rank #26,626, classified as anoun. apático is at rank #49,297, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈpa.ti.ku/.

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 75923, this pair ranks #2,197 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of apatia vs apático

Shared letters: aipt. Private to "apatia": -. Private to "apático": coá.

"apatia" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV  ·  "apático" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • apatia ← aaptia · apaita · apatai · apattia · appatia · aptaia · paatia

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "apatia" for "apático" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "apatia" is a noun and "apático" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "apatia" or "apático" show up more?
"apatia" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,626 in our Portuguese list, against #49,297 for "apático". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "apatia" vs "apático" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "apatia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "apático" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,197 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apatia" and "apático" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apatia vs apneia". 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 #2,197 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