sembróvsserbioWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sembró is a verb, serbio is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sembró” is a verb and “serbio” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,777
“sembró” frequency rank
#14,711
“serbio” frequency rank
49488
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sembró serbio
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de sembrar. Persona que es originaria de Serbia.

Where the eye mixes sembró and serbio

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sembró (CVCCCV) and serbio (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
sembró
6 ch
serbio

Look-alike desk: sembró vs serbio

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sembró is [sẽmˈbɾo] while serbio is [ˈseɾβ̞jo]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49488, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sembró is recorded at frequency rank #34,777, classified as averb, pronounced [sẽmˈbɾo]. serbio is at rank #14,711, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈseɾβ̞jo].

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 49488, this pair ranks #108,564 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sembró vs serbio

Shared letters: bers. Private to "sembró": mó. Private to "serbio": io.

"sembró" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "serbio" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • serbio ← cerbio · esrbio · sebrio · serbbio · serboi · seribo · serrbio · servio

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sembró" for "serbio" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sembró" is a verb and "serbio" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "sembró" or "serbio" show up more?
"serbio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,711 in our Spanish list, against #34,777 for "sembró". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sembró" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "serbio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #108,564 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sembró" and "serbio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sembró vs separo". 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 #108,564 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list