sabiávssambaConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#38,475
“sabiá” frequency rank
#2,598
“samba” frequency rank
41073
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sabiá samba
Definition pássaro canoro do Brasil dança de roda semelhante ao batuque, com dançarinos solistas e eventual presença da umbigada, difundida em todo o Brasil com variantes coreográficas e de acompanhamento instrumental

Letter map: sabiá vs samba

Shared letters muted; letters that set sabiá and samba apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. sabiá (CVCVV) and samba (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
sabiá
5 ch
samba

Corpus notes: sabiá and samba

sabiá and samba are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41073, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sabiá is recorded at frequency rank #38,475, classified as anoun. samba is at rank #2,598, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɐ̃.bɐ/.

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 41073, this pair ranks #24,930 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sabiá vs samba

Shared letters: abs. Private to "sabiá": iá. Private to "samba": m.

"sabiá" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "samba" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • samba ← asmba · sabma · samab · sambba · sammba · smaba · ssamba

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sabiá" for "samba" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "sabiá" vs "samba" - which ranks higher?
"samba" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,598 in our Portuguese list, against #38,475 for "sabiá". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "sabiá" and "samba". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sabiá" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "samba" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,930 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sabiá" and "samba" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sabiá vs sanita". 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 #24,930 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