Which to use
“sage” is a verb and “shade” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #31,548
- “sage” frequency rank
- #35,345
- “shade” frequency rank
- 66893
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sage | shade |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | primeira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo sagen | sombra |
Letter map: sage vs shade
Shared letters muted; letters that set sage and shade apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. sage runs 4 letters (CVCV) against shade's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for sage / shade
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sage is averb and shadeanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66893, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sage is recorded at frequency rank #31,548, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈzaːɡə/. shade is at rank #35,345, tagged as anoun.
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 66893, this pair ranks #4,820 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sage vs shade
Shared letters: aes. Private to "sage": g. Private to "shade": dh.
"sage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "shade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sage" for "shade" ever safe?
Frequency check: "sage" vs "shade" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "sage" and "shade". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "sage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "shade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #4,820 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sage" and "shade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shade vs shire". 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 #4,820 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.