garfovsgordoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#15,586
“garfo” frequency rank
#4,819
“gordo” frequency rank
20405
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature garfo gordo
Definition utensílio de dois ou mais dentes que faz parte do talher constituído de gordura ou matéria untuosa

Letter map: garfo vs gordo

Shared letters muted; letters that set garfo and gordo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. garfo and gordo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
garfo
5 ch
gordo

Grammar separator: garfo vs gordo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: garfo is anoun and gordoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20405, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

garfo is recorded at frequency rank #15,586, classified as anoun. gordo is at rank #4,819, 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 20405, this pair ranks #50,131 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of garfo vs gordo

Shared letters: gor. Private to "garfo": af. Private to "gordo": d.

"garfo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "gordo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • garfo ← agrfo · gafro · garffo · garof · garrfo · ggarfo · grafo
  • gordo ← ggordo · godro · gorddo · gorod · gorrdo · grodo · ogrdo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "garfo" for "gordo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "garfo" is a noun and "gordo" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "garfo" or "gordo"?
"gordo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,819 in our Portuguese list, against #15,586 for "garfo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "garfo" vs "gordo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "garfo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gordo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,131 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "garfo" and "gordo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "garçon vs garfo". 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 #50,131 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