senvssuWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#13,176
“sen” frequency rank
#6,713
“su” frequency rank
19889
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sen su
Definition sonho dele

Letter map: sen vs su

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

3 ch
sen
2 ch
su

Part-of-speech tell for sen / su

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sen is anoun and suanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19889, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sen is recorded at frequency rank #13,176, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛn/. su is at rank #6,713, tagged as anadj.

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 19889, this pair ranks #50,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sen vs su

Shared letters: s. Private to "sen": en. Private to "su": u.

"sen" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "su" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sen" for "su" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sen" is a noun and "su" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sen" vs "su" - which ranks higher?
"su" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,713 in our Portuguese list, against #13,176 for "sen". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "sen" and "su". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "su" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sen" and "su" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sen vs sueño". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #50,742 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