sadevssãoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#48,105
“sade” frequency rank
#34
“são” frequency rank
48139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sade são
Definition chuva saudável

Letter map: sade vs são

Shared letters muted; letters that set sade and são apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. sade runs 4 letters (CVCV) against são's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sade
3 ch
são

Grammar separator: sade vs são

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sade is anoun and sãoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sade is recorded at frequency rank #48,105, classified as anoun. 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 48139, this pair ranks #17,064 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sade vs são

Shared letters: s. Private to "sade": ade. Private to "são": oã.

"sade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "são" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sade ← asde · sadde · saed · sdae · ssade

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sade" and "são" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sade" is a noun and "são" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sade" or "são" show up more?
"são" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34 in our Portuguese list, against #48,105 for "sade". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sade" and "são".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sade" 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 #17,064 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sade" and "são" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sade 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 #17,064 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