samavssmeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#28,025
“sama” frequency rank
#40,334
“sme” frequency rank
68359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sama sme
Definition forma nominativo feminino singular do pronome sám primeira pessoa do plural do futuro do indicativo do verbo byť

Letter map: sama vs sme

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

4 ch
sama
3 ch
sme

Part-of-speech tell for sama / sme

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sama is apronoun and smeaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sama is recorded at frequency rank #28,025, classified as apron. sme is at rank #40,334, 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 68359, this pair ranks #4,296 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sama vs sme

Shared letters: ms. Private to "sama": a. Private to "sme": e.

"sama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sme" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • samasaam · samma · smaa · ssama

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sama" and "sme" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sama" is a pronoun and "sme" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sama" or "sme" show up more?
"sama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,025 in our Portuguese list, against #40,334 for "sme". 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 "sme". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sama" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,296 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sama" and "sme" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sme". 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 #4,296 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