spacevsstageWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#13,845
“space” frequency rank
#18,718
“stage” frequency rank
32563
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature space stage
Definition espaço encenar; produzir para o palco

Where the eye mixes space and stage

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
space
5 ch
stage

Look-alike desk: space vs stage

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: space is /ˈspeɪs/ while stage is /stedʒ, steɪdʒ/. 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 32563, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

space is recorded at frequency rank #13,845, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈspeɪs/. stage is at rank #18,718, tagged as averb, pronounced /stedʒ, steɪdʒ/.

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 32563, this pair ranks #35,209 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of space vs stage

Shared letters: aes. Private to "space": cp. Private to "stage": gt.

"space" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stage" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • spacepsace · sapce · spacce · spaec · spcae · sppace · sspace
  • stagesatge · sstage · staeg · stagge · stgae · sttage · tsage

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "space" and "stage" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "space" is a noun and "stage" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "space" or "stage" show up more?
"space" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,845 in our Portuguese list, against #18,718 for "stage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "space" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,209 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "space" and "stage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sade vs stage". 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 #35,209 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