formervsformosWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#47,368
“former” frequency rank
#13,742
“formos” frequency rank
61110
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature former formos
Definition formador primeira pessoa do plural do futuro do subjuntivo do verbo ser.

Letter map: former vs formos

Shared letters muted; letters that set former and formos apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
former
6 ch
formos

Grammar separator: former vs formos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: former is anoun and formosaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61110, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

former is recorded at frequency rank #47,368, classified as anoun. formos is at rank #13,742, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈfoɾ.mus/.

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 61110, this pair ranks #7,305 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of former vs formos

Shared letters: fmor. Private to "former": e. Private to "formos": s.

"former" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "formos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • formerfformer · fomrer · foremr · formerr · formmer · formre · forrmer · fromer
  • formosfformos · fomros · formmos · formoss · formso · foroms · forrmos · fromos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "former" and "formos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "former" is a noun and "formos" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "former" or "formos" show up more?
"formos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,742 in our Portuguese list, against #47,368 for "former". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "former" and "formos". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "former" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "formos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,305 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "former" and "formos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "former vs formol". 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 #7,305 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