fulanovsfuradoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#16,777
“fulano” frequency rank
#19,160
“furado” frequency rank
35937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fulano furado
Definition pessoa qualquer não especificada; usado para completar o espaço que deveria ser preenchido pelo nome de uma pessoa qualquer em uma frase: aquele ou aquilo que recebeu um ou mais furos

Letter map: fulano vs furado

Shared letters muted; letters that set fulano and furado apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. fulano and furado follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
fulano
6 ch
furado

Grammar separator: fulano vs furado

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fulano is anoun and furadoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35937, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fulano is recorded at frequency rank #16,777, classified as anoun. furado is at rank #19,160, tagged as anadj, pronounced /fu.ˈɾa.du/.

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 35937, this pair ranks #30,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fulano vs furado

Shared letters: afou. Private to "fulano": ln. Private to "furado": dr.

"fulano" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "furado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fulano ← ffulano · fluano · fualno · fulanno · fulaon · fullano · fulnao · uflano
  • furado ← ffurado · fruado · fuardo · furaddo · furaod · furdao · furrado · ufrado

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fulano" and "furado" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fulano" is a noun and "furado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fulano" vs "furado" - which ranks higher?
"fulano" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,777 in our Portuguese list, against #19,160 for "furado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "fulano" and "furado". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fulano" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "furado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fulano" and "furado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filão vs fulano". 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 #30,999 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