falirvsfoliaTell them apart

Quick tell: falir is a verb, folia is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“falir” is a verb and “folia” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,479
“falir” frequency rank
#12,068
“folia” frequency rank
39547
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature falir folia
Definition ir à falência, não ter como cumprir com suas obrigações financeiras antiga dança portuguesa rápida e animada, acompanhada por adufes e pandeiros

Letter map: falir vs folia

Shared letters muted; letters that set falir and folia apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
falir
5 ch
folia

Part-of-speech tell for falir / folia

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: falir is averb and foliaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39547, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

falir is recorded at frequency rank #27,479, classified as averb. folia is at rank #12,068, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fu.ˈli.ɐ/.

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 39547, this pair ranks #26,677 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of falir vs folia

Shared letters: afil. Private to "falir": r. Private to "folia": o.

"falir" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "folia" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • faliraflir · failr · falirr · fallir · falri · ffalir · flair
  • foliaffolia · floia · foila · folai · follia · oflia

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "falir" for "folia" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "falir" is a verb and "folia" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "falir" or "folia"?
"folia" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,068 in our Portuguese list, against #27,479 for "falir". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "falir" and "folia".

  • Full dictionary entry for "falir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "folia" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,677 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "falir" and "folia" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faia vs falir". 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 #26,677 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