filvsfitTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#35,592
“fil” frequency rank
#21,187
“fit” frequency rank
56779
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fil fit
Definition fio em boa forma

Letter map: fil vs fit

Shared letters muted; letters that set fil and fit apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. fil and fit follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
fil
3 ch
fit

Role in the sentence - fil and fit

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fil is anoun and fitanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - l in “fil” becomes t in “fit”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56779, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fil is recorded at frequency rank #35,592, classified as anoun, pronounced /fil/. fit is at rank #21,187, tagged as anadj.

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 56779, this pair ranks #9,751 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fil vs fit

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fil": l. Private to "fit": t.

"fil" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fil" for "fit" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fil" is a noun and "fit" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fil" or "fit"?
"fit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,187 in our Portuguese list, against #35,592 for "fil". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "fil" and "fit". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,751 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fil" and "fit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fil vs filão". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #9,751 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