sobrevssofreuTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#53
“sobre” frequency rank
#2,653
“sofreu” frequency rank
2706
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Letter map: sobre vs sofreu

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

5 ch
sobre
6 ch
sofreu

Part-of-speech tell for sobre / sofreu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sobre is anadverb and sofreuaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2706, 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/. sofreu is at rank #2,653, 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 2706, this pair ranks #72,584 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sobre vs sofreu

Shared letters: eors. Private to "sobre": b. Private to "sofreu": fu.

"sobre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sofreu" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sobreosbre · sbore · sobbre · sober · sobrre · sorbe · ssobre
  • sofreuosfreu · sforeu · soferu · soffreu · sofrreu · sofrue · sorfeu · ssofreu

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sobre" and "sofreu" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sobre" is an adverb and "sofreu" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "sobre" or "sofreu" show up more?
"sobre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #53 in our Portuguese list, against #2,653 for "sofreu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "sobre" vs "sofreu" 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 "sofreu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,584 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sobre" and "sofreu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sire vs sobre". 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 #72,584 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