bancovsblancConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#821
“banco” frequency rank
#16,233
“blanc” frequency rank
17054
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature banco blanc
Definition móvel para sentar, sem encosto se for individual, em madeira, cortiça, plástico, vime ou ferro; mocho; escabelo: branco

Where the eye mixes banco and blanc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
banco
5 ch
blanc

Visual trap between banco and blanc

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: banco is /ˈbã.ku/ while blanc is /ˈbɫaŋ/, ouvir^(fonte ?). Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17054, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

banco is recorded at frequency rank #821, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbã.ku/. 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 17054, this pair ranks #54,287 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of banco vs blanc

Shared letters: abcn. Private to "banco": o. Private to "blanc": l.

"banco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "blanc" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bancoabnco · bacno · bancco · bannco · banoc · bbanco · bnaco
  • blancbalnc · bblanc · blacn · blancc · blannc · bllanc · blnac · lbanc

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "banco" for "blanc" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "banco" is a noun and "blanc" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "banco" or "blanc"?
"banco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #821 in our Portuguese list, against #16,233 for "blanc". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "banco" 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 #54,287 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "banco" and "blanc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "blanc vs bloc". 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 #54,287 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