Which to use
“ba” and “bara” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,761
- “ba” frequency rank
- #48,605
- “bara” frequency rank
- 54366
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ba | bara |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A being's soul or personality, represented as a bird-headed figure, which survives after death but must be sustained with offerings of food. | A genre of homoerotic media, usually also pornographic, typically created by gay men and targeted at gay men in Japan. |
Letter map: ba vs bara
Shared letters muted; letters that set ba and bara apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Spelling & dictionary notes on ba vs bara
ba and bara are indexed as a confusable English 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 2 extra letter(s) - “ba” sits inside “bara”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54366, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ba is recorded at frequency rank #5,761, classified as anoun. bara is at rank #48,605, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɑː.ɹə/.
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 54366, this pair ranks #141,637 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of ba vs bara
Shared letters: ab. Private to "ba": -. Private to "bara": r.
"ba" · 2 letters · shape CV · "bara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- bara ← baar · bbara · braa
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "ba" and "bara" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "ba" or "bara"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "ba" and "bara". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "ba" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bara" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #141,637 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ba" and "bara" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bara vs Bau". 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 #141,637 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.