sawvsshowWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: saw is a noun, show is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“saw” is a noun and “show” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,456
“saw” frequency rank
#778
“show” frequency rank
23234
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saw show
Definition serrote expressa apreço

Letter map: saw vs show

Shared letters muted; letters that set saw and show apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
saw
4 ch
show

Part-of-speech tell for saw / show

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: saw is anoun and showanintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23234, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saw is recorded at frequency rank #22,456, classified as anoun, pronounced /sɔ/. show is at rank #778, tagged as anintj.

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 23234, this pair ranks #46,635 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of saw vs show

Shared letters: sw. Private to "saw": a. Private to "show": ho.

"saw" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "show" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • showhsow · shhow · showw · shwo · sohw · sshow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "saw" for "show" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "saw" is a noun and "show" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "saw" or "show"?
"show" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #778 in our Portuguese list, against #22,456 for "saw". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "saw" vs "show" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "saw" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "show" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,635 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saw" and "show" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saw vs soap". 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 #46,635 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