barcovsbardoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,745
“barco” frequency rank
#39,995
“bardo” frequency rank
43740
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barco bardo
Definition veículo de transporte aquático trovador ou poeta medieval

Where the eye mixes barco and bardo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. barco and bardo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
barco
5 ch
bardo

Visual trap between barco and bardo

A purely visual mix-up. barco (/ˈbaɾ.ku/) and bardo (/ˈbaɾ.du/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - c in “barco” becomes d in “bardo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43740, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barco is recorded at frequency rank #3,745, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbaɾ.ku/. 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 43740, this pair ranks #21,875 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of barco vs bardo

Shared letters: abor. Private to "barco": c. Private to "bardo": d.

"barco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bardo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barco ← abrco · bacro · barcco · baroc · barrco · bbarco · braco
  • bardo ← abrdo · badro · barddo · barod · barrdo · bbardo · brado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "barco" for "bardo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbaɾ.ku/ versus /ˈbaɾ.du/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "barco" or "bardo" show up more?
"barco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,745 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "barco" 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 #21,875 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barco" 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 #21,875 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