SofavssoisWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Sofa is a noun, sois is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Sofa” is a noun and “sois” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,680
“Sofa” frequency rank
#20,136
“sois” frequency rank
62816
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Sofa sois
Definition sofá segunda pessoa do plural do presente do indicativo do verbo ser

Where the eye mixes Sofa and sois

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Sofa
4 ch
sois

Why the eye confuses Sofa with sois

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Sofa is /ˈzoːfa/ ouvir^(fonte ?) while sois is /ˈsojs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62816, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Sofa is recorded at frequency rank #42,680, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈzoːfa/ ouvir^(fonte ?). sois is at rank #20,136, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈsojs/.

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 62816, this pair ranks #6,484 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Sofa vs sois

Shared letters: os. Private to "Sofa": af. Private to "sois": i.

"Sofa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Sofaosfa · sfoa · soaf · soffa · ssofa
  • soisosis · sios · soiss · sosi · ssois

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Sofa" for "sois" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Sofa" is a noun and "sois" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Sofa" vs "sois" - which ranks higher?
"sois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,136 in our Portuguese list, against #42,680 for "Sofa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Sofa" and "sois" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Sofa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sois" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,484 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Sofa" and "sois" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soap vs Sofa". 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 #6,484 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