subornarvssubornoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#34,934
“subornar” frequency rank
#14,243
“suborno” frequency rank
49177
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature subornar suborno
Definition fazer com que (alguém) retarde ou omita ato de ofício ou o pratique infrinjindo dever funcional mediante oferecimento ou promessa de vantagem indevida vantagem ou promessa oferecida a funcionário público para determiná-lo a descumprir ato de ofício

Letter map: subornar vs suborno

Shared letters muted; letters that set subornar and suborno apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. subornar runs 8 letters (CVCVCCVC) against suborno's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
subornar
7 ch
suborno

Role in the sentence - subornar and suborno

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: subornar is averb and subornoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49177, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

subornar is recorded at frequency rank #34,934, classified as averb, pronounced /su.buɾ.ˈnaɾ/. suborno is at rank #14,243, tagged as anoun.

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 49177, this pair ranks #15,896 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of subornar vs suborno

Shared letters: bnorsu. Private to "subornar": a. Private to "suborno": -.

"subornar" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC  ·  "suborno" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • subornar ← sbuornar · ssubornar · subbornar · subonrar · suboranr · subornarr · subornnar · subornra
  • suborno ← sbuorno · ssuborno · subborno · subonro · subornno · suboron · suborrno · subrono

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "subornar" and "suborno" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "subornar" is a verb and "suborno" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "subornar" vs "suborno" - which ranks higher?
"suborno" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,243 in our Portuguese list, against #34,934 for "subornar". 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 "subornar" and "suborno".

  • Full dictionary entry for "subornar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "suborno" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,896 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "subornar" and "suborno" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saborear vs subornar". 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 #15,896 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