favovsfocoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#45,853
“favo” frequency rank
#1,491
“foco” frequency rank
47344
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature favo foco
Definition alvéolo de cera hexagonal e o seu conteúdo, que as abelhas formam nas suas colmeias para armazém de mel, pólen, e cuidado dos ovos e larvas nitidez de uma imagem

Where the eye mixes favo and foco

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
favo
4 ch
foco

Look-alike desk: favo vs foco

A purely visual mix-up. favo (/ˈfa.vu/) and foco (/ˈfɔ.ko/) 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 47344, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

favo is recorded at frequency rank #45,853, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfa.vu/. foco is at rank #1,491, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɔ.ko/.

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 47344, this pair ranks #17,918 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of favo vs foco

Shared letters: fo. Private to "favo": av. Private to "foco": c.

"favo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "foco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • favoafvo · faov · favvo · ffavo · fvao
  • focofcoo · ffoco · focco · fooc · ofco

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "favo" and "foco" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈfa.vu/ versus /ˈfɔ.ko/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "favo" vs "foco" - which ranks higher?
"foco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,491 in our Portuguese list, against #45,853 for "favo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "favo" and "foco" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "favo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,918 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "favo" and "foco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fava vs favo". 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 #17,918 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