sama vs say, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#28,025
“sama” frequency rank: #8,261
“say” frequency rank: 36286
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sama	say
Definition	forma nominativo feminino singular do pronome sám	esmola

Letter map: sama vs say

Shared letters muted; letters that set sama and say apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

sama

3 ch

say

Grammar separator: sama vs say

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sama is apronoun and sayanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36286, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sama is recorded at frequency rank #28,025, classified as apron. say is at rank #8,261, 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 36286, this pair ranks #30,570 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sama vs say

Shared letters: as. Private to "sama": m. Private to "say": y.

"sama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "say" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

sama ← saam · samma · smaa · ssama

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sama" for "say" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sama" is a pronoun and "say" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "sama" or "say"?

"say" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,261 in our Portuguese list, against #28,025 for "sama". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "sama" vs "say" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "sama" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "say" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #30,570 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"sama" and "say" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sama vs Sau". 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 #30,570 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.