figovsfungoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,609
“figo” frequency rank
#16,519
“fungo” frequency rank
49128
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature figo fungo
Definition figo primeira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo fungar

Where the eye mixes figo and fungo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. figo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against fungo's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
figo
5 ch
fungo

Visual trap between figo and fungo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: figo is /ˈfi.ɡɔ/ while fungo is /ˈfũ.ɡu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49128, 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/. fungo is at rank #16,519, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈfũ.ɡu/.

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 49128, this pair ranks #15,951 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of figo vs fungo

Shared letters: fgo. Private to "figo": i. Private to "fungo": nu.

"figo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "fungo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • figo ← ffigo · fgio · figgo · fiog · ifgo
  • fungo ← ffungo · fnugo · fugno · funggo · funngo · funog · ufngo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "figo" and "fungo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "figo" is a noun and "fungo" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "figo" or "fungo" show up more?
"fungo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,519 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

Eye-level mix-up between "figo" and "fungo" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "figo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fungo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,951 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "figo" and "fungo" 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 #15,951 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