sumirvssurgirWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“sumir” and “surgir” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,746
“sumir” frequency rank
#6,127
“surgir” frequency rank
17873
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sumir surgir
Definition desaparecer, deixar de existir aparecer repentinamente

Letter map: sumir vs surgir

Shared letters muted; letters that set sumir and surgir apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. sumir runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against surgir's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
sumir
6 ch
surgir

Spelling & dictionary notes on sumir vs surgir

sumir and surgir are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17873, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sumir is recorded at frequency rank #11,746, classified as averb. surgir is at rank #6,127, tagged as averb, pronounced /suɾ.ˈʒiɾ/.

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 17873, this pair ranks #53,264 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sumir vs surgir

Shared letters: irsu. Private to "sumir": m. Private to "surgir": g.

"sumir" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "surgir" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sumir ← smuir · ssumir · suimr · sumirr · summir · sumri · usmir
  • surgir ← srugir · ssurgir · sugrir · surggir · surgirr · surgri · surigr · surrgir

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sumir" for "surgir" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "sumir" vs "surgir" - which ranks higher?
"surgir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,127 in our Portuguese list, against #11,746 for "sumir". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "sumir" vs "surgir" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sumir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "surgir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,264 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sumir" and "surgir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soir vs sumir". 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 #53,264 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