say

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“say” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,261) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#8,261
frequency rank, Portuguese
1,185
“S” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - esmola

Corpus desk

Index PT-say · say · Portuguese

say · rank #8,261 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #8,261
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,185
  • PHOTO-FINISH ruído

Nearest frequency peer: ruído (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Vizinhos de frequência do confusável “say”

Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo

corpus weight

What this shows As barras situam “say” face aos lemas portugueses mais próximos por rank, não um reprint da secretária de confusáveis.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

say vs se
33% similar
say vs só
33% similar
say vs si
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for say
PropertyValue
Headwordsay
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechNoun
Letters3
Frequency rank#8,261
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “say”

Esta escala corre do núcleo do português quotidiano (esquerda) até o rastro de formas raras (direita).saycai aqui:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Os ticks avançam em logaritmo; cada um é da ordem de dez vezes mais raro. Na mesma faixa de raridade aparecem “ruído” (#8,260), “temporal” (#8,268), “recusar” (#8,253). Entre 1,185 lemas com “S”, “say” fica em #8,261. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for say is neighbouring look-alikes ("se", "só", …), not just typos; it is anoun. Frequency #8,261 among 1,185 “S” headwords. Gloss: "esmola".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for say, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "se", "só", "si", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct Portuguese form is say, spelled S-A-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    esmola

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how say appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Bi say alîkariya wan, em dê bi ser bikevin.

Synonyms

sayaسایاxêrخێرسای

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "say"?
"say" is spelled S-A-Y.
What does "say" mean?
As a noun, "say" means: esmola
What words are commonly confused with "say"?
"say" is commonly confused with "se", "só", "si". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "say" come from?
"say" is a Portuguese word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar Portuguese words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "say", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Portuguese headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

vcs#8,275mec#8,225his#8,209dog#8,326

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list