obravsórfãWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#702
“obra” frequency rank
#25,180
“órfã” frequency rank
25882
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature obra órfã
Definition resultado de uma ação ou de um trabalho feminino plural de órfão

Where the eye mixes obra and órfã

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
obra
4 ch
órfã

Look-alike desk: obra vs órfã

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: obra is /ˈɔ.bɾɐ/ while órfã is /ˈɔɾ.fɐ̃/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25882, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

obra is recorded at frequency rank #702, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɔ.bɾɐ/. órfã is at rank #25,180, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɔɾ.fɐ̃/.

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 25882, this pair ranks #43,359 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of obra vs órfã

Shared letters: r. Private to "obra": abo. Private to "órfã": fãó.

"obra" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "órfã" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • obraobar · obbra · obrra · orba

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "obra" for "órfã" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obra" is a noun and "órfã" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "obra" or "órfã" show up more?
"obra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #702 in our Portuguese list, against #25,180 for "órfã". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "obra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "órfã" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,359 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "obra" and "órfã" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oda vs órfã". 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 #43,359 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