sievsstepWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#40,788
“sie” frequency rank
#16,178
“step” frequency rank
56966
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Letter map: sie vs step

Shared letters muted; letters that set sie and step apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
sie
4 ch
step

Role in the sentence - sie and step

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sie is apronoun and stepanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56966, 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 ?). step is at rank #16,178, 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 56966, this pair ranks #9,618 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sie vs step

Shared letters: es. Private to "sie": i. Private to "step": pt.

"sie" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "step" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stepsetp · sstep · stepp · stpe · sttep · tsep

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sie" and "step" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sie" is a pronoun and "step" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sie" or "step" show up more?
"step" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,178 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.

After this comparison

You've compared "sie" and "step". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "step" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,618 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sie" and "step" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sie". 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 #9,618 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