few vs foi, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“few” is an adjective and “foi” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,283
“few” frequency rank: #26
“foi” frequency rank: 38309
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	few	foi
Definition	pouco; poucos	terceira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo ser

Letter map: few vs foi

Shared letters muted; letters that set few and foi apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

few

3 ch

foi

Role in the sentence - few and foi

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: few is anadjective and foiaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38309, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

few is recorded at frequency rank #38,283, classified as anadj. foi is at rank #26, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈfoj/.

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 38309, this pair ranks #28,170 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of few vs foi

Shared letters: f. Private to "few": ew. Private to "foi": io.

"few" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "foi" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "few" for "foi" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "few" is an adjective and "foi" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "few" vs "foi" - which ranks higher?

"foi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26 in our Portuguese list, against #38,283 for "few". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "few" and "foi". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "few" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "foi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #28,170 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"few" and "foi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fern vs few". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #28,170 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.