feetvsfetoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#26,388
“feet” frequency rank
#13,082
“feto” frequency rank
39470
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feet feto
Definition plural de foot engravidar (alguém), fecundar, tornar frutífero

Where the eye mixes feet and feto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. feet (CVVC) and feto (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
feet
4 ch
feto

Look-alike desk: feet vs feto

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: feet is /fiːt/ while feto is /ˈfeː.toː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39470, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feet is recorded at frequency rank #26,388, classified as anoun, pronounced /fiːt/. feto is at rank #13,082, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈfeː.toː/.

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 39470, this pair ranks #26,765 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of feet vs feto

Shared letters: eft. Private to "feet": -. Private to "feto": o.

"feet" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "feto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feet ← efet · feett · fet · fete · ffeet
  • feto ← efto · feot · fetto · ffeto · fteo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "feet" for "feto" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "feet" is a noun and "feto" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "feet" vs "feto" - which ranks higher?
"feto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,082 in our Portuguese list, against #26,388 for "feet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "feet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "feto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,765 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feet" and "feto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "feet 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 #26,765 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