salevssteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#28,024
“sale” frequency rank
#36,242
“ste” frequency rank
64266
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sale ste
Definition ver liquidação segunda pessoa do plural do futuro do indicativo do verbo byť

Letter map: sale vs ste

Shared letters muted; letters that set sale and ste apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sale runs 4 letters (CVCV) against ste's 3 (CCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sale
3 ch
ste

Grammar separator: sale vs ste

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sale is anoun and steaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64266, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sale is recorded at frequency rank #28,024, classified as anoun. ste is at rank #36,242, tagged as averb.

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 64266, this pair ranks #5,848 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sale vs ste

Shared letters: es. Private to "sale": al. Private to "ste": t.

"sale" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "ste" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sale ← asle · sael · salle · slae · ssale

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sale" and "ste" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sale" is a noun and "ste" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sale" or "ste" show up more?
"sale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,024 in our Portuguese list, against #36,242 for "ste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "sale" and "ste". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,848 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sale" and "ste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs ste". 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 #5,848 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