smevssumoTell them apart

Quick tell: sme is a verb, sumo is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sme” is a verb and “sumo” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,334
“sme” frequency rank
#9,264
“sumo” frequency rank
49598
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sme sumo
Definition primeira pessoa do plural do futuro do indicativo do verbo byť supremo, máximo

Letter map: sme vs sumo

Shared letters muted; letters that set sme and sumo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sme runs 3 letters (CCV) against sumo's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
sme
4 ch
sumo

Part-of-speech tell for sme / sumo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sme is averb and sumoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sme is recorded at frequency rank #40,334, classified as averb. sumo is at rank #9,264, tagged as anadj.

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 49598, this pair ranks #15,390 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sme vs sumo

Shared letters: ms. Private to "sme": e. Private to "sumo": ou.

"sme" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "sumo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sumo ← smuo · ssumo · summo · suom · usmo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sme" and "sumo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sme" is a verb and "sumo" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sme" or "sumo"?
"sumo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,264 in our Portuguese list, against #40,334 for "sme". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sme" and "sumo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sumo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,390 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sme" and "sumo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs sme". 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 #15,390 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