celebrarvscélebreTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#4,707
“celebrar” frequency rank
#13,054
“célebre” frequency rank
17761
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature celebrar célebre
Definition comemorar famoso, conhecido por muitos; afamado, famigerado

Where the eye mixes celebrar and célebre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. celebrar runs 8 letters (CVCVCCVC) against célebre's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
celebrar
7 ch
célebre

Look-alike desk: celebrar vs célebre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: celebrar is /sɨ.lɨ.ˈbɾaɾ/ while célebre is /ˈsɛ.le.bɾi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17761, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

celebrar is recorded at frequency rank #4,707, classified as averb, pronounced /sɨ.lɨ.ˈbɾaɾ/. célebre is at rank #13,054, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɛ.le.bɾi/.

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 17761, this pair ranks #53,400 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of celebrar vs célebre

Shared letters: bcelr. Private to "celebrar": a. Private to "célebre": é.

"celebrar" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC  ·  "célebre" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • celebrar ← ccelebrar · ceelbrar · celberar · celebarr · celebbrar · celebrarr · celebrra · celebrrar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "celebrar" and "célebre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "celebrar" is a verb and "célebre" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "celebrar" or "célebre"?
"celebrar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,707 in our Portuguese list, against #13,054 for "célebre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "celebrar" and "célebre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "celebrar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "célebre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,400 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "celebrar" and "célebre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "célebre vs celeiro". 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 #53,400 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