sapovssopéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,403
“sapo” frequency rank
#43,662
“sopé” frequency rank
53065
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sapo sopé
Definition refere-se à maioria dos anfíbios da ordem dos anuros que possuem pele rugosa e seca base

Where the eye mixes sapo and sopé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. sapo and sopé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
sapo
4 ch
sopé

Why the eye confuses sapo with sopé

A purely visual mix-up. sapo (/ˈsa.pu/) and sopé (/su.ˈpɛ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53065, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sapo is recorded at frequency rank #9,403, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsa.pu/. sopé is at rank #43,662, tagged as anoun, pronounced /su.ˈpɛ/.

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 53065, this pair ranks #12,308 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sapo vs sopé

Shared letters: ops. Private to "sapo": a. Private to "sopé": é.

"sapo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sopé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sapo ← aspo · saop · sappo · spao · ssapo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sapo" for "sopé" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈsa.pu/ versus /su.ˈpɛ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "sapo" vs "sopé" - which ranks higher?
"sapo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,403 in our Portuguese list, against #43,662 for "sopé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "sapo" and "sopé" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sapo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sopé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #12,308 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sapo" and "sopé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soap vs sopé". 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 #12,308 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