ser vs sus, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ser” is a noun and “sus” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30
“ser” frequency rank: #7,578
“sus” frequency rank: 7608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ser	sus
Definition	existir, aquilo que supõe-se existir	interjeição que demonstra impaciência (século XVI)

Letter map: ser vs sus

Shared letters muted; letters that set ser and sus apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ser

3 ch

sus

Grammar separator: ser vs sus

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ser is anoun and susanintj. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ser is recorded at frequency rank #30, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈseɾ/. sus is at rank #7,578, tagged as anintj.

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 7608, this pair ranks #66,508 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ser vs sus

Shared letters: s. Private to "ser": er. Private to "sus": u.

"ser" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "sus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ser" for "sus" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ser" is a noun and "sus" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ser" or "sus" show up more?

"ser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30 in our Portuguese list, against #7,578 for "sus". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "ser" vs "sus" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "ser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "sus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #66,508 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ser" and "sus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sus". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #66,508 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.