extintovsextintorTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,137
“extinto” frequency rank
#37,795
“extintor” frequency rank
51932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature extinto extintor
Definition que se extinguiu aparelho para extinguir incêndios

Where the eye mixes extinto and extintor

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

7 ch
extinto
8 ch
extintor

Look-alike desk: extinto vs extintor

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: extinto is /ɐjʃ.ˈtĩ.tu/ while extintor is /ɐjʃ.tĩ.ˈtoɾ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “extinto” sits inside “extintor”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

extinto is recorded at frequency rank #14,137, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɐjʃ.ˈtĩ.tu/. extintor is at rank #37,795, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐjʃ.tĩ.ˈtoɾ/.

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 51932, this pair ranks #13,179 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of extinto vs extintor

Shared letters: einotx. Private to "extinto": -. Private to "extintor": r.

"extinto" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "extintor" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • extintoetxinto · exitnto · extinnto · extinot · extintto · extitno · extnito · exttinto
  • extintoretxintor · exitntor · extinntor · extinotr · extintorr · extintro · extinttor · extitnor

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "extinto" and "extintor" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "extinto" is an adjective and "extintor" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "extinto" or "extintor" show up more?
"extinto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,137 in our Portuguese list, against #37,795 for "extintor". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "extinto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "extintor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,179 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "extinto" and "extintor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "extinto vs extrato". 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 #13,179 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