sãovssitoTell them apart

Which to use

“são” and “sito” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#34
“são” frequency rank
#30,723
“sito” frequency rank
30757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature são sito
Definition saudável situado

Letter map: são vs sito

Shared letters muted; letters that set são and sito apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
são
4 ch
sito

Spelling & dictionary notes on são vs sito

são and sito are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

são is recorded at frequency rank #34, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɐ̃w̃/. sito is at rank #30,723, tagged as anadj.

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 30757, this pair ranks #37,510 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of são vs sito

Shared letters: os. Private to "são": ã. Private to "sito": it.

"são" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "sito" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sitosiot · sitto · ssito · stio

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "são" for "sito" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "são" vs "sito" - which ranks higher?
"são" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34 in our Portuguese list, against #30,723 for "sito". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "são" and "sito". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "são" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sito" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,510 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "são" and "sito" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sire vs sito". 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 #37,510 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