figovsfishWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,609
“figo” frequency rank
#18,872
“fish” frequency rank
51481
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature figo fish
Definition figo de peixe, relacionado a peixe:

Where the eye mixes figo and fish

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. figo (CVCV) and fish (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
figo
4 ch
fish

Look-alike desk: figo vs fish

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: figo is /ˈfi.ɡɔ/ while fish is /ˈfɪʃ/. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51481, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

figo is recorded at frequency rank #32,609, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfi.ɡɔ/. fish is at rank #18,872, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈfɪʃ/.

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 51481, this pair ranks #13,567 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of figo vs fish

Shared letters: fi. Private to "figo": go. Private to "fish": hs.

"figo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "fish" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • figo ← ffigo · fgio · figgo · fiog · ifgo
  • fish ← ffish · fihs · fishh · fissh · fsih · ifsh

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "figo" and "fish" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "figo" is a noun and "fish" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "figo" or "fish" show up more?
"fish" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,872 in our Portuguese list, against #32,609 for "figo". 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 "figo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fish" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,567 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "figo" and "fish" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "figo vs filão". 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 #13,567 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