balãovsbardoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,601
“balão” frequency rank
#39,995
“bardo” frequency rank
47596
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature balão bardo
Definition recipiente de forma oval que, cheio de um fluido mais leve que o ar, flutua sem auxílio de um sistema de propulsão trovador ou poeta medieval

Letter map: balão vs bardo

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

5 ch
balão
5 ch
bardo

Pair insight - balão / bardo

balão and bardo 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47596, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

balão is recorded at frequency rank #7,601, classified as anoun. bardo is at rank #39,995, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbaɾ.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 47596, this pair ranks #17,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of balão vs bardo

Shared letters: abo. Private to "balão": . Private to "bardo": dr.

"balão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "bardo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bardoabrdo · badro · barddo · barod · barrdo · bbardo · brado

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "balão" and "bardo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, 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 "balão" or "bardo" show up more?
"balão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,601 in our Portuguese list, against #39,995 for "bardo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "balão" vs "bardo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "balão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bardo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "balão" and "bardo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bardo vs brio". 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 #17,641 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