sábio vs são, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#8,398
“sábio” frequency rank: #34
“são” frequency rank: 8432
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sábio	são
Definition	que tem o poder de discernimento e julgamento em relação ao que é justo e verdadeiro	saudável

Letter map: sábio vs são

Shared letters muted; letters that set sábio and são apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sábio runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against são's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch

sábio

3 ch

são

Spelling & dictionary notes on sábio vs são

sábio and são 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 differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8432, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sábio is recorded at frequency rank #8,398, classified as anadj. são is at rank #34, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɐ̃w̃/.

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 8432, this pair ranks #65,332 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sábio vs são

Shared letters: os. Private to "sábio": biá. Private to "são": ã.

"sábio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "são" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sábio" for "são" ever safe?

No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Frequency check: "sábio" vs "são" - which ranks higher?

"são" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34 in our Portuguese list, against #8,398 for "sábio". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "sábio" and "são". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "sábio" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "são" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #65,332 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"sábio" and "são" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sábio vs sacro". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #65,332 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.