sickvssiteWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#31,561
“sick” frequency rank
#301
“site” frequency rank
31862
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sick site
Definition doente ver saite, sítio

Where the eye mixes sick and site

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
sick
4 ch
site

Look-alike desk: sick vs site

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sick is /sɪk/ while site is /ˈsaj.ʧi/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31862, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sick is recorded at frequency rank #31,561, classified as anadj, pronounced /sɪk/. site is at rank #301, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsaj.ʧi/.

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 31862, this pair ranks #36,103 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sick vs site

Shared letters: is. Private to "sick": ck. Private to "site": et.

"sick" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "site" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sickisck · scik · sicck · sickk · sikc · ssick
  • siteiste · siet · sitte · ssite · stie

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sick" and "site" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sick" is an adjective and "site" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sick" or "site" show up more?
"site" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #301 in our Portuguese list, against #31,561 for "sick". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "site" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,103 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sick" and "site" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sick 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 #36,103 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