bandavsbandarWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#908
“banda” frequency rank
#45,713
“bandar” frequency rank
46621
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature banda bandar
Definition parte lateral de um objeto colocar bandas

Letter map: banda vs bandar

Shared letters muted; letters that set banda and bandar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. banda runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against bandar's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
banda
6 ch
bandar

Grammar separator: banda vs bandar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: banda is anoun and bandaraverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “banda” sits inside “bandar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46621, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

banda is recorded at frequency rank #908, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɐ̃.dɐ/. bandar is at rank #45,713, tagged as averb.

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 46621, this pair ranks #18,689 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of banda vs bandar

Shared letters: abdn. Private to "banda": -. Private to "bandar": r.

"banda" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bandar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • banda ← abnda · badna · banad · bandda · bannda · bbanda · bnada
  • bandar ← abndar · badnar · banadr · bandarr · banddar · bandra · banndar · bbandar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "banda" for "bandar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "banda" is a noun and "bandar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "banda" vs "bandar" - which ranks higher?
"banda" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #908 in our Portuguese list, against #45,713 for "bandar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "banda" vs "bandar" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "banda" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bandar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,689 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "banda" and "bandar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bandar vs bandit". 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 #18,689 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