feelvsfezWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,877
“feel” frequency rank
#203
“fez” frequency rank
12080
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feel fez
Definition tato, sensação, percepção, impressão barrete em forma de cone truncado (usado por alguns muçulmanos)

Where the eye mixes feel and fez

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

4 ch
feel
3 ch
fez

Why the eye confuses feel with fez

A purely visual mix-up. feel (/fiːl/) and fez (/ˈfes/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12080, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feel is recorded at frequency rank #11,877, classified as anoun, pronounced /fiːl/. fez is at rank #203, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfes/.

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 12080, this pair ranks #60,621 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of feel vs fez

Shared letters: ef. Private to "feel": l. Private to "fez": z.

"feel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "fez" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feelefel · feell · fele · ffeel

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "feel" for "fez" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/fiːl/ versus /ˈfes/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "feel" or "fez" show up more?
"fez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #203 in our Portuguese list, against #11,877 for "feel". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "feel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,621 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feel" and "fez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "feel 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 #60,621 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