seavsConfusable pair

Quick tell: sea is a noun, is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sea” is a noun and “só” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,925
“sea” frequency rank
#50
“só” frequency rank
9975
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sea
Definition mar. solitário, sem companhia, sem círculo social

Letter map: sea vs só

Shared letters muted; letters that set sea and apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
sea
2 ch
só

Part-of-speech tell for sea / só

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sea is anoun and anadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9975, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sea is recorded at frequency rank #9,925, classified as anoun, pronounced ]. is at rank #50, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɔ/.

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 9975, this pair ranks #63,266 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sea vs só

Shared letters: s. Private to "sea": ae. Private to "só": ó.

"sea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "só" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sea" and "só" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sea" is a noun and "só" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sea" or "só" show up more?
"só" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #50 in our Portuguese list, against #9,925 for "sea". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "sea" vs "só" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "só" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,266 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sea" and "só" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sea vs soap". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #63,266 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