bankvsbranWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,803
“bank” frequency rank
#29,613
“bran” frequency rank
39416
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bank bran
Definition banco farelo.

Where the eye mixes bank and bran

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

4 ch
bank
4 ch
bran

Look-alike desk: bank vs bran

A purely visual mix-up. bank (/bɑŋk/) and bran (/bræn/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39416, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bank is recorded at frequency rank #9,803, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɑŋk/. bran is at rank #29,613, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bræn/.

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 39416, this pair ranks #26,840 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bank vs bran

Shared letters: abn. Private to "bank": k. Private to "bran": r.

"bank" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "bran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bankabnk · bakn · bankk · bannk · bbank · bnak
  • branbarn · bbran · brann · brna · brran · rban

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bank" for "bran" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/bɑŋk/ versus /bræn/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bank" vs "bran" - which ranks higher?
"bank" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,803 in our Portuguese list, against #29,613 for "bran". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bank" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bran" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,840 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bank" and "bran" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brains vs bran". 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 #26,840 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