fatovsfeioWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#475
“fato” frequency rank
#4,727
“feio” frequency rank
5202
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fato feio
Definition fato, roupas, vestimenta não estético, horrendo

Letter map: fato vs feio

Shared letters muted; letters that set fato and feio apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
fato
4 ch
feio

Part-of-speech tell for fato / feio

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fato is anoun and feioanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5202, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fato is recorded at frequency rank #475, classified as anoun. feio is at rank #4,727, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈfɐj.u/.

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 5202, this pair ranks #69,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fato vs feio

Shared letters: fo. Private to "fato": at. Private to "feio": ei.

"fato" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "feio" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fatoafto · faot · fatto · ffato · ftao
  • feioefio · feoi · ffeio · fieo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fato" and "feio" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fato" is a noun and "feio" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "fato" or "feio" show up more?
"fato" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #475 in our Portuguese list, against #4,727 for "feio". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "fato" and "feio". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fato" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "feio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fato" and "feio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "feio vs fern". 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 #69,473 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