Which to use
“sup” is a verb and “supra” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,818
- “sup” frequency rank
- #26,272
- “supra” frequency rank
- 40090
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sup | supra |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To sip; to take a small amount of food or drink into the mouth, especially with a spoon. | Used to indicate that the current citation is from a source cited earlier in the text. |
Letter map: sup vs supra
Shared letters muted; letters that set sup and supra apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for sup / supra
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sup is averb and supraanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sup” sits inside “supra”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sup is recorded at frequency rank #13,818, classified as averb, pronounced /sʌp/. supra is at rank #26,272, tagged as anadv.
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 40090, this pair ranks #270,771 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sup vs supra
Shared letters: psu. Private to "sup": -. Private to "supra": ar.
"sup" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "supra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- supra ← spura · ssupra · supar · suppra · suprra · surpa · uspra
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sup" for "supra" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "sup" or "supra" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "sup" and "supra". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "sup" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "supra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #270,771 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sup" and "supra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "supra vs sura". 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 #270,771 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.