B vs but, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“B” is a symbol and “but” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#734
“B” frequency rank: #7,254
“but” frequency rank: 7988
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	B	but
Definition	letra do alfabeto latino	mas, porém, todavia

Letter map: B vs but

Shared letters muted; letters that set B and but apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

1 ch

3 ch

but

Role in the sentence - B and but

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: B is asymbol and butaconjunction. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “B” sits inside “but”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7988, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

B is recorded at frequency rank #734, classified as asymbol. but is at rank #7,254, tagged as aconj.

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 7988, this pair ranks #65,964 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of B vs but

Shared letters: b. Private to "B": -. Private to "but": tu.

"B" · 1 letters · shape C · "but" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "B" and "but" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "B" is a symbol and "but" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "B" vs "but" - which ranks higher?

"B" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #734 in our Portuguese list, against #7,254 for "but". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "B" and "but". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "B" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "but" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #65,964 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"B" and "but" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bué vs but". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #65,964 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.