cortiçovscríticoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#41,920
“cortiço” frequency rank
#3,064
“crítico” frequency rank
44984
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cortiço crítico
Definition colmeia feita num cilindro de cortiça, ou casca de árvore diz-se de estado médico de grande perigo para o paciente

Letter map: cortiço vs crítico

Shared letters muted; letters that set cortiço and crítico apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. cortiço (CVCCVCV) and crítico (CCVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
cortiço
7 ch
crítico

Part-of-speech tell for cortiço / crítico

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cortiço is anoun and críticoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44984, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cortiço is recorded at frequency rank #41,920, classified as anoun. crítico is at rank #3,064, tagged as anadj.

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 44984, this pair ranks #20,444 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cortiço vs crítico

Shared letters: ciort. Private to "cortiço": ç. Private to "crítico": í.

"cortiço" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "crítico" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cortiço" for "crítico" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cortiço" is a noun and "crítico" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cortiço" or "crítico"?
"crítico" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,064 in our Portuguese list, against #41,920 for "cortiço". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "cortiço" and "crítico". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cortiço" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crítico" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,444 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cortiço" and "crítico" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cortiça vs cortiço". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #20,444 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