sentado vs sentar, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“sentado” is an adjective and “sentar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,147
“sentado” frequency rank: #3,587
“sentar” frequency rank: 8734
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sentado	sentar
Definition	que se sentou	colocar em assento

Letter map: sentado vs sentar

Shared letters muted; letters that set sentado and sentar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch

sentado

6 ch

sentar

Grammar separator: sentado vs sentar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sentado is anadjective and sentaraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8734, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sentado is recorded at frequency rank #5,147, classified as anadj, pronounced /sẽ.ˈta.du/. sentar is at rank #3,587, tagged as averb.

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 8734, this pair ranks #64,924 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sentado vs sentar

Shared letters: aenst. Private to "sentado": do. Private to "sentar": r.

"sentado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "sentar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

sentado ← esntado · senatdo · senntado · sentaddo · sentaod · sentdao · senttado · setnado
sentar ← esntar · senatr · senntar · sentarr · sentra · senttar · setnar · snetar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sentado" for "sentar" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sentado" is an adjective and "sentar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "sentado" vs "sentar" - which ranks higher?

"sentar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,587 in our Portuguese list, against #5,147 for "sentado". 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 "sentado" and "sentar".

Full dictionary entry for "sentado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "sentar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #64,924 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"sentado" and "sentar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "senda vs sentar". 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 #64,924 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.