ferrovsforroWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,093
“ferro” frequency rank
#22,330
“forro” frequency rank
24423
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ferro forro
Definition elemento químico de símbolo Fe, possui o número atômico 26 e massa atômica relativa 55,845 u; é o quarto elemento mais abundante na crosta terrestre; é um metal duro e muito reativo, formando ligas com os mais diversos elementos que teve alforria, liberto da escravidão, aforriado

Letter map: ferro vs forro

Shared letters muted; letters that set ferro and forro apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
ferro
5 ch
forro

Role in the sentence - ferro and forro

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ferro is anoun and forroanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “ferro” becomes o in “forro”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24423, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ferro is recorded at frequency rank #2,093, classified as anoun. forro is at rank #22,330, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈfo.Ru/.

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 24423, this pair ranks #45,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ferro vs forro

Shared letters: for. Private to "ferro": e. Private to "forro": -.

"ferro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "forro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ferroefrro · fero · feror · fferro · frero
  • forrofforro · foror · froro · ofrro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ferro" for "forro" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ferro" is a noun and "forro" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ferro" or "forro" show up more?
"ferro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,093 in our Portuguese list, against #22,330 for "forro". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "ferro" vs "forro" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ferro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "forro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ferro" and "forro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "forro vs fosco". 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 #45,200 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