babadovsbêbadoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#31,249
“babado” frequency rank
#6,271
“bêbado” frequency rank
37520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature babado bêbado
Definition molhado com baba embriagado, sob efeito de álcool

Where the eye mixes babado and bêbado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. babado and bêbado follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
babado
6 ch
bêbado

Why the eye confuses babado with bêbado

A purely visual mix-up. babado (/baˈba.du/) and bêbado (/ˈbe.ba.du/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “babado” becomes ê in “bêbado”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37520, 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/. bêbado is at rank #6,271, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈbe.ba.du/.

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 37520, this pair ranks #29,085 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of babado vs bêbado

Shared letters: abdo. Private to "babado": -. Private to "bêbado": ê.

"babado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "bêbado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • babado ← abbado · baabdo · babaddo · babaod · babbado · babdao · bbaado · bbabado

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "babado" and "bêbado" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/baˈba.du/ versus /ˈbe.ba.du/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "babado" or "bêbado"?
"bêbado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,271 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "babado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bêbado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,085 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "babado" and "bêbado" 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 #29,085 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