sábadovssalvadoTell them apart

Quick tell: sábado is a noun, salvado is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sábado” is a noun and “salvado” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#880
“sábado” frequency rank
#33,607
“salvado” frequency rank
34487
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sábado salvado
Definition 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 relativo ao que foi salvo

Where the eye mixes sábado and salvado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
sábado
7 ch
salvado

Why the eye confuses sábado with salvado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sábado is /ˈsa.bɐ.dʊ/ while salvado is /sawˈva.du/ [saʊ̯ˈva.du]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34487, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sábado is recorded at frequency rank #880, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsa.bɐ.dʊ/. salvado is at rank #33,607, tagged as anadj, pronounced /sawˈva.du/ [saʊ̯ˈva.du].

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 34487, this pair ranks #32,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sábado vs salvado

Shared letters: ados. Private to "sábado": . Private to "salvado": lv.

"sábado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "salvado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • salvadoaslvado · salavdo · sallvado · salvaddo · salvaod · salvdao · salvvado · savlado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sábado" for "salvado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sábado" is a noun and "salvado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sábado" vs "salvado" - which ranks higher?
"sábado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #880 in our Portuguese list, against #33,607 for "salvado". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sábado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "salvado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sábado" and "salvado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "salvado vs sarado". 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 #32,762 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