fontevsforceWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“fonte” and “force” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#894
“fonte” frequency rank
#7,914
“force” frequency rank
8808
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fonte force
Definition lugar onde nasce água força

Where the eye mixes fonte and force

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
fonte
5 ch
force

Visual trap between fonte and force

A purely visual mix-up. fonte (/ˈfõ.tɨ/) and force (/fɔʁs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fonte is recorded at frequency rank #894, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfõ.tɨ/. force is at rank #7,914, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɔʁs/.

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 8808, this pair ranks #64,836 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fonte vs force

Shared letters: efo. Private to "fonte": nt. Private to "force": cr.

"fonte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "force" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fonteffonte · fnote · fonet · fonnte · fontte · fotne · ofnte
  • forcefforce · focre · forcce · forec · forrce · froce · ofrce

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fonte" and "force" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈfõ.tɨ/ versus /fɔʁs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fonte" or "force"?
"fonte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #894 in our Portuguese list, against #7,914 for "force". 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 "fonte" and "force" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fonte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "force" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,836 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fonte" and "force" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "force vs fosco". 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 #64,836 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