samavssarnaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: sama is a pronoun, sarna is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sama” is a pronoun and “sarna” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,025
“sama” frequency rank
#40,325
“sarna” frequency rank
68350
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sama sarna
Definition forma nominativo feminino singular do pronome sám afecção da pele

Letter map: sama vs sarna

Shared letters muted; letters that set sama and sarna apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. sama runs 4 letters (CVCV) against sarna's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sama
5 ch
sarna

Part-of-speech tell for sama / sarna

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sama is apronoun and sarnaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68350, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sama is recorded at frequency rank #28,025, classified as apron. sarna is at rank #40,325, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsaɾ.nɐ/.

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 68350, this pair ranks #4,304 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sama vs sarna

Shared letters: as. Private to "sama": m. Private to "sarna": nr.

"sama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sarna" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sama ← saam · samma · smaa · ssama
  • sarna ← asrna · saran · sarnna · sarrna · srana · ssarna

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sama" for "sarna" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sama" is a pronoun and "sarna" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sama" or "sarna"?
"sama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,025 in our Portuguese list, against #40,325 for "sarna". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "sama" and "sarna". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sama" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sarna" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,304 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sama" and "sarna" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saba vs sarna". 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 #4,304 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