secarvssetorTell them apart

Quick tell: secar is a verb, setor is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“secar” is a verb and “setor” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,684
“secar” frequency rank
#1,629
“setor” frequency rank
10313
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature secar setor
Definition fazer evaporar a umidade de parte de um círculo delimitada por dois raios e o segmento de curva correspondente na circunferência

Letter map: secar vs setor

Shared letters muted; letters that set secar and setor apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
secar
5 ch
setor

Role in the sentence - secar and setor

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: secar is averb and setoranoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10313, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

secar is recorded at frequency rank #8,684, classified as averb, pronounced /sɨ.ˈkaɾ/. setor is at rank #1,629, tagged as anoun.

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 10313, this pair ranks #62,834 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of secar vs setor

Shared letters: ers. Private to "secar": ac. Private to "setor": ot.

"secar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "setor" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • secarescar · scear · seacr · secarr · seccar · secra · ssecar
  • setorestor · seotr · setorr · setro · settor · ssetor · steor

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "secar" for "setor" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "secar" is a verb and "setor" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "secar" vs "setor" - which ranks higher?
"setor" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,629 in our Portuguese list, against #8,684 for "secar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "secar" and "setor".

  • Full dictionary entry for "secar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "setor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,834 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "secar" and "setor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seno vs setor". 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 #62,834 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