sin vs só, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“sin” is a pronoun and “só” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,687
“sin” frequency rank: #50
“só” frequency rank: 8737
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sin	só
Definition	aquilo, aquele	solitário, sem companhia, sem círculo social

Letter map: sin vs só

Shared letters muted; letters that set sin and só apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

sin

2 ch

só

Part-of-speech tell for sin / só

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sin is apronoun and sóanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8737, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sin is recorded at frequency rank #8,687, classified as apron. só is at rank #50, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɔ/.

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 8737, this pair ranks #64,921 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sin vs só

Shared letters: s. Private to "sin": in. Private to "só": ó.

"sin" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "só" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sin" and "só" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sin" is a pronoun and "só" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sin" or "só" show up more?

"só" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #50 in our Portuguese list, against #8,687 for "sin". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "sin" vs "só" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "sin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "só" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #64,921 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"sin" and "só" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sin". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #64,921 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.