factovsfurtoConfusable pair

Which to use

“facto” and “furto” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,780
“facto” frequency rank
#16,779
“furto” frequency rank
18559
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature facto furto
Definition coisa realizada: ato, feito o ato de furtar

Where the eye mixes facto and furto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. facto and furto follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
facto
5 ch
furto

Visual trap between facto and furto

A purely visual mix-up. facto (/ˈfak.tu/) and furto (/ˈfuɾ.tu/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18559, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

facto is recorded at frequency rank #1,780, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfak.tu/. furto is at rank #16,779, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfuɾ.tu/.

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 18559, this pair ranks #52,403 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of facto vs furto

Shared letters: fot. Private to "facto": ac. Private to "furto": ru.

"facto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "furto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • facto ← afcto · faccto · facot · factto · fatco · fcato · ffacto
  • furto ← ffurto · furot · furrto · furtto · futro · ufrto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "facto" for "furto" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈfak.tu/ versus /ˈfuɾ.tu/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "facto" or "furto" show up more?
"facto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,780 in our Portuguese list, against #16,779 for "furto". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "facto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "furto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,403 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "facto" and "furto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fito vs furto". 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 #52,403 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