baldevsBallTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,431
“balde” frequency rank
#8,855
“Ball” frequency rank
17286
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature balde Ball
Definition vasilha de forma quase cilíndrica para o transporte de água e outros usos domésticos feita em madeira, metal ou plástico bola

Where the eye mixes balde and Ball

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
balde
4 ch
Ball

Look-alike desk: balde vs Ball

A purely visual mix-up. balde (/ˈbaɫ.dɨ/) and Ball (/bal/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17286, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

balde is recorded at frequency rank #8,431, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbaɫ.dɨ/. Ball is at rank #8,855, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bal/.

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 17286, this pair ranks #53,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of balde vs Ball

Shared letters: abl. Private to "balde": de. Private to "Ball": -.

"balde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Ball" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • baldeablde · badle · baldde · baled · ballde · bbalde
  • Ballabll · bball · blal

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "balde" and "Ball" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbaɫ.dɨ/ versus /bal/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "balde" or "Ball"?
"balde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,431 in our Portuguese list, against #8,855 for "Ball". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "balde" and "Ball" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "balde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ball" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "balde" and "Ball" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ball vs bile". 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 #53,999 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