seevssenseTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,391
“see” frequency rank
#22,155
“sense” frequency rank
30546
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature see sense
Definition cê (letra C ou c) sentido

Where the eye mixes see and sense

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. see runs 3 letters (CVV) against sense's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
see
5 ch
sense

Why the eye confuses see with sense

A purely visual mix-up. see (/ˈseː/) and sense (/sɛns/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30546, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

see is recorded at frequency rank #8,391, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈseː/. sense is at rank #22,155, tagged as anoun, pronounced /sɛns/.

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 30546, this pair ranks #37,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of see vs sense

Shared letters: es. Private to "see": -. Private to "sense": n.

"see" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "sense" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sense ← esnse · senes · sennse · sensse · sesne · snese · ssense

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "see" and "sense" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈseː/ versus /sɛns/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "see" vs "sense" - which ranks higher?
"see" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,391 in our Portuguese list, against #22,155 for "sense". 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 "see" and "sense" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "see" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sense" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,762 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "see" and "sense" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "senda vs sense". 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 #37,762 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