serávsseremConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#143
“será” frequency rank
#812
“serem” frequency rank
955
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature será serem
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do futuro do presente do indicativo do verbo ser terceira pessoa do plural do infinitivo pessoal do verbo ser:

Where the eye mixes será and serem

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

4 ch
será
5 ch
serem

Look-alike desk: será vs serem

A purely visual mix-up. será (/se.ˈɾa/) and serem (/ˈse.ɾẽ/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 955, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

será is recorded at frequency rank #143, classified as averb, pronounced /se.ˈɾa/. serem is at rank #812, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈse.ɾẽ/.

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 955, this pair ranks #74,676 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of será vs serem

Shared letters: ers. Private to "será": á. Private to "serem": m.

"será" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "serem" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seremesrem · seerm · seremm · serme · serrem · sreem · sserem

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "será" for "serem" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/se.ˈɾa/ versus /ˈse.ɾẽ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "será" or "serem"?
"será" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #143 in our Portuguese list, against #812 for "serem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "será" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "serem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,676 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "será" and "serem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "serem vs sire". 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 #74,676 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