baratovsbardoTell them apart

Quick tell: barato is a adjective, bardo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3,820
“barato” frequency rank
#39,995
“bardo” frequency rank
43815
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barato bardo
Definition de baixo preço trovador ou poeta medieval

Where the eye mixes barato and bardo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. barato runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against bardo's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
barato
5 ch
bardo

Look-alike desk: barato vs bardo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: barato is /bɐ.ˈɾa.tu/ while bardo is /ˈbaɾ.du/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barato is recorded at frequency rank #3,820, classified as anadj, pronounced /bɐ.ˈɾa.tu/. bardo is at rank #39,995, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbaɾ.du/.

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 43815, this pair ranks #21,769 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of barato vs bardo

Shared letters: abor. Private to "barato": t. Private to "bardo": d.

"barato" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "bardo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barato ← abrato · baarto · baraot · baratto · barrato · bartao · bbarato · braato
  • bardo ← abrdo · badro · barddo · barod · barrdo · bbardo · brado

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "barato" and "bardo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "barato" is an adjective and "bardo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "barato" or "bardo" show up more?
"barato" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,820 in our Portuguese list, against #39,995 for "bardo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "barato" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bardo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,769 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barato" and "bardo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bardo vs brio". 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 #21,769 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