babadovsbalãoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: babado is a adjective, balão is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“babado” is an adjective and “balão” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,249
“babado” frequency rank
#7,601
“balão” frequency rank
38850
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature babado balão
Definition molhado com baba recipiente de forma oval que, cheio de um fluido mais leve que o ar, flutua sem auxílio de um sistema de propulsão

Letter map: babado vs balão

Shared letters muted; letters that set babado and balão apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

6 ch
babado
5 ch
balão

Part-of-speech tell for babado / balão

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: babado is anadjective and balãoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38850, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

babado is recorded at frequency rank #31,249, classified as anadj, pronounced /baˈba.du/. balão is at rank #7,601, 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 38850, this pair ranks #27,532 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of babado vs balão

Shared letters: abo. Private to "babado": d. Private to "balão": .

"babado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "balão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • babadoabbado · baabdo · babaddo · babaod · babbado · babdao · bbaado · bbabado

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "babado" and "balão" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "babado" is an adjective and "balão" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "babado" or "balão"?
"balão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,601 in our Portuguese list, against #31,249 for "babado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "babado" and "balão". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "babado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "balão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,532 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "babado" and "balão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "babado vs bardo". 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 #27,532 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