sievsskyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sie is a pronoun, sky is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sie” is a pronoun and “sky” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,788
“sie” frequency rank
#7,084
“sky” frequency rank
47872
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sie sky
Definition ela, pronome pessoal feminino do caso nominativo da terceira pessoa do singular: céu

Where the eye mixes sie and sky

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
sie
3 ch
sky

Look-alike desk: sie vs sky

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sie is /zi:/ ouvir^(fonte ?) ouvir^(fonte ?) while sky is /skaɪ/. 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 (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47872, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sie is recorded at frequency rank #40,788, classified as apron, pronounced /zi:/ ouvir^(fonte ?) ouvir^(fonte ?). sky is at rank #7,084, tagged as anoun, pronounced /skaɪ/.

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 47872, this pair ranks #17,335 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sie vs sky

Shared letters: s. Private to "sie": ei. Private to "sky": ky.

"sie" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "sky" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sie" and "sky" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sie" is a pronoun and "sky" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sie" or "sky" show up more?
"sky" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,084 in our Portuguese list, against #40,788 for "sie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "sie" and "sky" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sky" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,335 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sie" and "sky" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sie". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #17,335 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