safevssopéWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: safe is a verb, sopé is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“safe” is a verb and “sopé” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,193
“safe” frequency rank
#43,662
“sopé” frequency rank
69855
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature safe sopé
Definition primeira ou terceira pessoa do presente subjuntivo de safar base

Where the eye mixes safe and sopé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. safe and sopé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
safe
4 ch
sopé

Look-alike desk: safe vs sopé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: safe is /seɪf/, enPR: sāf while sopé is /su.ˈpɛ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69855, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

safe is recorded at frequency rank #26,193, classified as averb, pronounced /seɪf/, enPR: sāf. sopé is at rank #43,662, tagged as anoun, pronounced /su.ˈpɛ/.

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 69855, this pair ranks #3,821 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of safe vs sopé

Shared letters: s. Private to "safe": aef. Private to "sopé": opé.

"safe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sopé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • safe ← asfe · saef · saffe · sfae · ssafe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "safe" and "sopé" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "safe" is a verb and "sopé" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "safe" or "sopé" show up more?
"safe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,193 in our Portuguese list, against #43,662 for "sopé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "safe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sopé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,821 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "safe" and "sopé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soap vs sopé". 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 #3,821 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