garfovsgrãoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#15,586
“garfo” frequency rank
#8,346
“grão” frequency rank
23932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature garfo grão
Definition utensílio de dois ou mais dentes que faz parte do talher forma reduzida de grande

Letter map: garfo vs grão

Shared letters muted; letters that set garfo and grão apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
garfo
4 ch
grão

Part-of-speech tell for garfo / grão

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: garfo is anoun and grãoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

garfo is recorded at frequency rank #15,586, classified as anoun. grão is at rank #8,346, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɾɐ̃w̃/.

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 23932, this pair ranks #45,803 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of garfo vs grão

Shared letters: gor. Private to "garfo": af. Private to "grão": ã.

"garfo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "grão" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • garfoagrfo · gafro · garffo · garof · garrfo · ggarfo · grafo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "garfo" and "grão" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "garfo" is a noun and "grão" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "garfo" or "grão" show up more?
"grão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,346 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.

After this comparison

You've compared "garfo" and "grão". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "garfo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,803 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "garfo" and "grão" 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 #45,803 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