gafevsgraveWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#36,467
“gafe” frequency rank
#2,096
“grave” frequency rank
38563
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gafe grave
Definition ação ou palavra impensada que involuntariamente causa constrangimento ao autor e/ou às pessoas a ele próximas som de baixa frequência, no limite inferior da audição humana

Letter map: gafe vs grave

Shared letters muted; letters that set gafe and grave apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. gafe runs 4 letters (CVCV) against grave's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
gafe
5 ch
grave

Role in the sentence - gafe and grave

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gafe is anoun and graveanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38563, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gafe is recorded at frequency rank #36,467, classified as anoun. grave is at rank #2,096, 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 38563, this pair ranks #27,859 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gafe vs grave

Shared letters: aeg. Private to "gafe": f. Private to "grave": rv.

"gafe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "grave" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gafe ← agfe · gaef · gaffe · gfae · ggafe
  • grave ← garve · ggrave · graev · gravve · grrave · grvae · rgave

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gafe" for "grave" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gafe" is a noun and "grave" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "gafe" vs "grave" - which ranks higher?
"grave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,096 in our Portuguese list, against #36,467 for "gafe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "gafe" and "grave".

  • Full dictionary entry for "gafe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,859 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gafe" and "grave" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gafe vs gain". 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 #27,859 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