starvssteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#3,645
“star” frequency rank
#36,242
“ste” frequency rank
39887
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature star ste
Definition estrela segunda pessoa do plural do futuro do indicativo do verbo byť

Letter map: star vs ste

Shared letters muted; letters that set star and ste apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
star
3 ch
ste

Part-of-speech tell for star / ste

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: star is anoun and steaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39887, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

star is recorded at frequency rank #3,645, classified as anoun, pronounced /stɑ:ʳ/ ouvir^(fonte ?). ste is at rank #36,242, 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 39887, this pair ranks #26,295 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of star vs ste

Shared letters: st. Private to "star": ar. Private to "ste": e.

"star" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "ste" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • starsatr · sstar · starr · stra · sttar · tsar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "star" for "ste" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "star" is a noun and "ste" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "star" or "ste" show up more?
"star" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,645 in our Portuguese list, against #36,242 for "ste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "star" and "ste".

  • Full dictionary entry for "star" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,295 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "star" and "ste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs ste". 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 #26,295 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