bai vs by, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#27,371
“bai” frequency rank: #1,598
“by” frequency rank: 28969
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	bai	by
Definition	de acordo com; conforme	por;

Letter map: bai vs by

Shared letters muted; letters that set bai and by apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

bai

2 ch

Pair insight - bai / by

bai and by 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28969, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bai is recorded at frequency rank #27,371, classified as aprep, pronounced /ba.ˈi/. by is at rank #1,598, tagged as aprep.

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 28969, this pair ranks #39,773 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bai vs by

Shared letters: b. Private to "bai": ai. Private to "by": y.

"bai" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "by" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bai" and "by" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Which is more common, "bai" or "by"?

"by" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,598 in our Portuguese list, against #27,371 for "bai". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "bai" and "by".

Full dictionary entry for "bai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "by" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #39,773 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"bai" and "by" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bai vs bué". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #39,773 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.