ferravsferrarTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#40,575
“ferra” frequency rank
#11,270
“ferrar” frequency rank
51845
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ferra ferrar
Definition a operação de ferrar o gado pôr ferraduras em

Letter map: ferra vs ferrar

Shared letters muted; letters that set ferra and ferrar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. ferra runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against ferrar's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
ferra
6 ch
ferrar

Role in the sentence - ferra and ferrar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ferra is anoun and ferraraverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ferra” sits inside “ferrar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51845, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ferra is recorded at frequency rank #40,575, classified as anoun. ferrar is at rank #11,270, tagged as averb, pronounced /fɨ.ˈRaɾ/.

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 51845, this pair ranks #13,260 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ferra vs ferrar

Shared letters: aefr. Private to "ferra": -. Private to "ferrar": -.

"ferra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "ferrar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ferra ← efrra · fferra · frera
  • ferrar ← efrrar · ferar · ferarr · ferrarr · ferrra · fferrar · frerar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ferra" for "ferrar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ferra" is a noun and "ferrar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ferra" or "ferrar" show up more?
"ferrar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,270 in our Portuguese list, against #40,575 for "ferra". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "ferra" and "ferrar". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ferra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ferrar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,260 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ferra" and "ferrar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fern vs ferra". 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 #13,260 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