sortevssortearConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#949
“sorte” frequency rank
#34,926
“sortear” frequency rank
35875
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sorte sortear
Definition acaso ou coincidência feliz; contingência favorável distribuir por sorteio, por rifa

Letter map: sorte vs sortear

Shared letters muted; letters that set sorte and sortear apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
sorte
7 ch
sortear

Part-of-speech tell for sorte / sortear

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sorte is anoun and sortearaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sorte” sits inside “sortear”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35875, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sorte is recorded at frequency rank #949, classified as anoun. sortear is at rank #34,926, tagged as averb, pronounced /suɾ.ˈtjaɾ/.

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 35875, this pair ranks #31,080 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sorte vs sortear

Shared letters: eorst. Private to "sorte": -. Private to "sortear": a.

"sorte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sortear" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sorteosrte · soret · sorrte · sortte · sotre · srote · ssorte
  • sortearosrtear · soretar · sorrtear · sortaer · sortearr · sortera · sorttear · sotrear

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sorte" and "sortear" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sorte" is a noun and "sortear" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sorte" or "sortear"?
"sorte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #949 in our Portuguese list, against #34,926 for "sortear". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sorte" and "sortear".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sorte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sortear" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #31,080 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sorte" and "sortear" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sire vs sorte". 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 #31,080 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