showvssobWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: show is a intj, sob is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“show” is an intj and “sob” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#778
“show” frequency rank
#320
“sob” frequency rank
1098
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature show sob
Definition expressa apreço abaixo, em baixo

Letter map: show vs sob

Shared letters muted; letters that set show and sob apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
show
3 ch
sob

Role in the sentence - show and sob

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: show is anintj and sobapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1098, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

show is recorded at frequency rank #778, classified as anintj. sob is at rank #320, tagged as aprep, pronounced /ˈsob/.

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 1098, this pair ranks #74,525 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of show vs sob

Shared letters: os. Private to "show": hw. Private to "sob": b.

"show" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "sob" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • showhsow · shhow · showw · shwo · sohw · sshow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "show" for "sob" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "show" is an intj and "sob" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "show" vs "sob" - which ranks higher?
"sob" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #320 in our Portuguese list, against #778 for "show". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "show" vs "sob" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "show" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sob" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,525 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "show" and "sob" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soap vs sob". 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 #74,525 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