sobrevssofreTell them apart

Quick tell: sobre is a adverb, sofre is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sobre” is an adverb and “sofre” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#53
“sobre” frequency rank
#3,108
“sofre” frequency rank
3161
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sobre sofre
Definition emprega-se para designar que o vento sopra por ante-avante do pano terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo sofrer

Letter map: sobre vs sofre

Shared letters muted; letters that set sobre and sofre apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
sobre
5 ch
sofre

Part-of-speech tell for sobre / sofre

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sobre is anadverb and sofreaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - b in “sobre” becomes f in “sofre”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3161, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sobre is recorded at frequency rank #53, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈso.bɾɨ/. sofre is at rank #3,108, tagged as averb.

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 3161, this pair ranks #72,036 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sobre vs sofre

Shared letters: eors. Private to "sobre": b. Private to "sofre": f.

"sobre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sofre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sobreosbre · sbore · sobbre · sober · sobrre · sorbe · ssobre
  • sofreosfre · sfore · sofer · soffre · sorfe · ssofre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sobre" and "sofre" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sobre" is an adverb and "sofre" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sobre" or "sofre"?
"sobre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #53 in our Portuguese list, against #3,108 for "sofre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "sobre" vs "sofre" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sobre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sofre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,036 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sobre" and "sofre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sire vs sofre". 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 #72,036 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