simvssismoTell them apart

Quick tell: sim is a adverb, sismo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sim” is an adverb and “sismo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#147
“sim” frequency rank
#27,672
“sismo” frequency rank
27819
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sim sismo
Definition exprime afirmação, acordo, aprovação, permissão ou consentimento designação científica do terremoto

Letter map: sim vs sismo

Shared letters muted; letters that set sim and sismo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. sim runs 3 letters (CVC) against sismo's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
sim
5 ch
sismo

Part-of-speech tell for sim / sismo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sim is anadverb and sismoanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27819, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sim is recorded at frequency rank #147, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈsĩ/. sismo is at rank #27,672, 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 27819, this pair ranks #41,109 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sim vs sismo

Shared letters: ims. Private to "sim": -. Private to "sismo": o.

"sim" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "sismo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sismo ← issmo · simso · sismmo · sisom · sissmo · ssimo · ssismo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sim" and "sismo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sim" is an adverb and "sismo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sim" or "sismo"?
"sim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #147 in our Portuguese list, against #27,672 for "sismo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sim" and "sismo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sim" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sismo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,109 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sim" and "sismo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sadismo vs sismo". 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 #41,109 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