sejamvsselarTell them apart

Which to use

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

#923
“sejam” frequency rank
#26,893
“selar” frequency rank
27816
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sejam selar
Definition terceira pessoa do plural do presente do subjuntivo do verbo ser. pôr sela (em cavalo, por exemplo)

Where the eye mixes sejam and selar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
sejam
5 ch
selar

Why the eye confuses sejam with selar

A purely visual mix-up. sejam (/ˈse.ʒã/) and selar (/sɨ.ˈlaɾ/) 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 27816, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sejam is recorded at frequency rank #923, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈse.ʒã/. selar is at rank #26,893, tagged as averb, pronounced /sɨ.ˈlaɾ/.

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 27816, this pair ranks #41,111 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sejam vs selar

Shared letters: aes. Private to "sejam": jm. Private to "selar": lr.

"sejam" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "selar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sejamesjam · seajm · sejamm · sejjam · sejma · sjeam · ssejam
  • selareslar · sealr · selarr · sellar · selra · slear · sselar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sejam" and "selar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈse.ʒã/ versus /sɨ.ˈlaɾ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "sejam" or "selar"?
"sejam" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #923 in our Portuguese list, against #26,893 for "selar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sejam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "selar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,111 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sejam" and "selar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "selar vs selim". 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 #41,111 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