salientarvssalienteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: salientar is a verb, saliente is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“salientar” is a verb and “saliente” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,459
“salientar” frequency rank
#33,605
“saliente” frequency rank
48064
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature salientar saliente
Definition tornar saliente que sobressai

Where the eye mixes salientar and saliente

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. salientar runs 9 letters (CVCVVCCVC) against saliente's 8 (CVCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
salientar
8 ch
saliente

Look-alike desk: salientar vs saliente

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: salientar is /sɐ.ljẽ.ˈtaɾ/ while saliente is /sɐ.ˈljẽ.tɨ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48064, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

salientar is recorded at frequency rank #14,459, classified as averb, pronounced /sɐ.ljẽ.ˈtaɾ/. saliente is at rank #33,605, tagged as anadj, pronounced /sɐ.ˈljẽ.tɨ/.

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 48064, this pair ranks #17,146 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of salientar vs saliente

Shared letters: aeilnst. Private to "salientar": r. Private to "saliente": -.

"salientar" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVC  ·  "saliente" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • salientar ← aslientar · sailentar · saleintar · salienatr · salienntar · salientarr · salientra · salienttar
  • saliente ← asliente · sailente · saleinte · salienet · saliennte · salientte · salietne · salinete

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "salientar" and "saliente" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "salientar" is a verb and "saliente" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "salientar" vs "saliente" - which ranks higher?
"salientar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,459 in our Portuguese list, against #33,605 for "saliente". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "salientar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "saliente" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,146 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • 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 #17,146 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