banvsbaniTell them apart

Quick tell: ban is a noun, bani is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ban” is a noun and “bani” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,668
“ban” frequency rank
#39,994
“bani” frequency rank
53662
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ban bani
Definition proibição banhar, tomar banho, molhar

Letter map: ban vs bani

Shared letters muted; letters that set ban and bani apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
ban
4 ch
bani

Role in the sentence - ban and bani

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ban is anoun and baniaverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ban” sits inside “bani”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53662, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ban is recorded at frequency rank #13,668, classified as anoun. bani is at rank #39,994, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈba.ni/.

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 53662, this pair ranks #11,873 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ban vs bani

Shared letters: abn. Private to "ban": -. Private to "bani": i.

"ban" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "bani" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • banibanni · bbani · bnai

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ban" for "bani" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ban" is a noun and "bani" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ban" vs "bani" - which ranks higher?
"ban" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,668 in our Portuguese list, against #39,994 for "bani". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ban" and "bani".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ban" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bani" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,873 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ban" and "bani" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bandit vs bani". 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 #11,873 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