shakevsstageWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: shake is a noun, stage is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“shake” is a noun and “stage” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,206
“shake” frequency rank
#18,718
“stage” frequency rank
33924
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature shake stage
Definition sacudidela, abalo, tremor encenar; produzir para o palco

Where the eye mixes shake and stage

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

5 ch
shake
5 ch
stage

Why the eye confuses shake with stage

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: shake is /'ʃeɪk/ while stage is /stedʒ, steɪdʒ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33924, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shake is recorded at frequency rank #15,206, classified as anoun, pronounced /'ʃeɪk/. stage is at rank #18,718, tagged as averb, pronounced /stedʒ, steɪdʒ/.

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 33924, this pair ranks #33,469 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of shake vs stage

Shared letters: aes. Private to "shake": hk. Private to "stage": gt.

"shake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stage" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shakehsake · sahke · shaek · shakke · shhake · shkae · sshake
  • stagesatge · sstage · staeg · stagge · stgae · sttage · tsage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "shake" for "stage" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "shake" is a noun and "stage" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "shake" or "stage" show up more?
"shake" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,206 in our Portuguese list, against #18,718 for "stage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "shake" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,469 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "shake" and "stage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sade vs stage". 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 #33,469 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