sériovsserraWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sério is a adjective, serra is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#544
“sério” frequency rank
#1,450
“serra” frequency rank
1994
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sério serra
Definition que demonstra profundo pensar instrumento de lâmina de aço dentada e comprida para cortar madeira e outros materiais

Letter map: sério vs serra

Shared letters muted; letters that set sério and serra apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

5 ch
sério
5 ch
serra

Part-of-speech tell for sério / serra

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sério is anadjective and serraanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1994, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sério is recorded at frequency rank #544, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɛ.ɾju/. serra is at rank #1,450, tagged as anoun.

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 1994, this pair ranks #73,504 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sério vs serra

Shared letters: rs. Private to "sério": ioé. Private to "serra": ae.

"sério" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "serra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • serraesrra · sera · serar · srera · sserra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sério" and "serra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sério" is an adjective and "serra" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sério" or "serra" show up more?
"sério" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #544 in our Portuguese list, against #1,450 for "serra". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "sério" vs "serra" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sério" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "serra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,504 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sério" and "serra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "senda vs serra". 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 #73,504 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