sabavssábadoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“saba” and “sábado” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,708
“saba” frequency rank
#880
“sábado” frequency rank
42588
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saba sábado
Definition lençol, roupa fina de cama sexto dia da semana pela norma ISO 8601, posterior à sexta-feira e anterior ao domingo; por fundamentação bíblica e etimológica, é considerado o último dia da semana

Where the eye mixes saba and sábado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. saba runs 4 letters (CVCV) against sábado's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
saba
6 ch
sábado

Why the eye confuses saba with sábado

A purely visual mix-up. saba (singular: /sa.'ba/; plural: /sa.'bas/) and sábado (/ˈsa.bɐ.dʊ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42588, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saba is recorded at frequency rank #41,708, classified as anoun, pronounced singular: /sa.'ba/; plural: /sa.'bas/. sábado is at rank #880, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsa.bɐ.dʊ/.

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 42588, this pair ranks #23,171 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of saba vs sábado

Shared letters: abs. Private to "saba": -. Private to "sábado": doá.

"saba" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sábado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • saba ← asba · saab · sabba · sbaa · ssaba

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saba" and "sábado" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (singular: /sa.'ba/; plural: /sa.'bas/ versus /ˈsa.bɐ.dʊ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "saba" vs "sábado" - which ranks higher?
"sábado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #880 in our Portuguese list, against #41,708 for "saba". 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 "saba" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sábado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,171 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saba" and "sábado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saba vs Sau". 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 #23,171 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