by
The verdict
“by” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,598) as a preposition. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #1,598
- frequency rank, Portuguese
- 840
- “B” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - por;
Corpus desk
Index PT-by · by · Portuguese
by · rank #1,598 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,598
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 840
- PHOTO-FINISH aeroporto
Nearest frequency peer: aeroporto (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Vizinhos de frequência do confusável “by”
Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo
- álbum
álbum
98,406 corpus weight
- aeroporto
aeroporto
98,404 corpus weight
- by
by
98,403 corpus weight
- calma
calma
98,401 corpus weight
- certamente
certamente
98,400 corpus weight
- construir
construir
98,399 corpus weight
What this shows As barras situam “by” face aos lemas portugueses mais próximos por rank, não um reprint da secretária de confusáveis.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | by |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Part of speech | Preposition |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #1,598 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “by”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for by is neighbouring look-alikes ("B", "BR", …), not just typos; it is apreposition. Frequency #1,598 among 840 “B” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No misspelling variants are generated for by in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "B", "BR", "bi", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct Portuguese form is by, spelled B-Y.
Definition
- 1por;
- 2próximo de.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how by appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The book was written by him.
The mailbox is by the bus stop.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.