banvsblancConfusable pair

Quick tell: ban is a noun, blanc is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#13,668
“ban” frequency rank
#16,233
“blanc” frequency rank
29901
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ban blanc
Definition proibição branco

Letter map: ban vs blanc

Shared letters muted; letters that set ban and blanc apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. ban runs 3 letters (CVC) against blanc's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
ban
5 ch
blanc

Role in the sentence - ban and blanc

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ban is anoun and blancanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29901, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ban is recorded at frequency rank #13,668, classified as anoun. blanc is at rank #16,233, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɫaŋ/, ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 29901, this pair ranks #38,630 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ban vs blanc

Shared letters: abn. Private to "ban": -. Private to "blanc": cl.

"ban" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "blanc" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blanc ← balnc · bblanc · blacn · blancc · blannc · bllanc · blnac · lbanc

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ban" for "blanc" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ban" is a noun and "blanc" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ban" or "blanc" show up more?
"ban" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,668 in our Portuguese list, against #16,233 for "blanc". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ban" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blanc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,630 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ban" and "blanc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ban vs bué". 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 #38,630 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