bad vs ban, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#4,699
“bad” frequency rank: #13,668
“ban” frequency rank: 18367
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	bad	ban
Definition	banho	proibição

Letter map: bad vs ban

Shared letters muted; letters that set bad and ban apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

bad

3 ch

ban

Pair insight - bad / ban

bad and ban are indexed as a confusable Portuguese 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 a single letter - d in “bad” becomes n in “ban”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18367, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bad is recorded at frequency rank #4,699, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɑt/. ban is at rank #13,668, 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 18367, this pair ranks #52,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bad vs ban

Shared letters: ab. Private to "bad": d. Private to "ban": n.

"bad" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "ban" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bad" and "ban" be used interchangeably?

No. They differ by a single letter - d in “bad” becomes n in “ban”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bad" or "ban" show up more?

"bad" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,699 in our Portuguese list, against #13,668 for "ban". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "bad" and "ban". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "bad" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ban" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #52,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"bad" and "ban" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ban vs bué". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #52,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.