filvsfixaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#35,592
“fil” frequency rank
#7,641
“fixa” frequency rank
43233
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fil fixa
Definition fio terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo fixar

Letter map: fil vs fixa

Shared letters muted; letters that set fil and fixa apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
fil
4 ch
fixa

Part-of-speech tell for fil / fixa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fil is anoun and fixaaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43233, 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/. fixa is at rank #7,641, tagged as averb.

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 43233, this pair ranks #22,431 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fil vs fixa

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fil": l. Private to "fixa": ax.

"fil" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "fixa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fixaffixa · fiax · fixxa · fxia · ifxa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fil" for "fixa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fil" is a noun and "fixa" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fil" or "fixa"?
"fixa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,641 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.

Useful next steps

Pair "fil" vs "fixa" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fixa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,431 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fil" and "fixa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fil 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 #22,431 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