signovssítioWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“signo” and “sítio” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,792
“signo” frequency rank
#1,908
“sítio” frequency rank
12700
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature signo sítio
Definition sinal, marca lugar; local; localidade; povoação

Where the eye mixes signo and sítio

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. signo (CVCCV) and sítio (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
signo
5 ch
sítio

Visual trap between signo and sítio

A purely visual mix-up. signo (/ˈsi.ɡnu/) and sítio (/ˈsi.tju/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12700, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

signo is recorded at frequency rank #10,792, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsi.ɡnu/. sítio is at rank #1,908, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsi.tju/.

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 12700, this pair ranks #59,813 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of signo vs sítio

Shared letters: ios. Private to "signo": gn. Private to "sítio": tí.

"signo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sítio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • signo ← isgno · sgino · siggno · signno · sigon · singo · ssigno

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "signo" and "sítio" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈsi.ɡnu/ versus /ˈsi.tju/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "signo" or "sítio"?
"sítio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,908 in our Portuguese list, against #10,792 for "signo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "signo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sítio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,813 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "signo" and "sítio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "signo vs sueño". 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 #59,813 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