barravsburlaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,355
“barra” frequency rank
#45,223
“burla” frequency rank
47578
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barra burla
Definition peça larga de metal ou outro material, via de regra de forma cilíndrica ou prismática ação de burlar

Letter map: barra vs burla

Shared letters muted; letters that set barra and burla apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. barra and burla follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
barra
5 ch
burla

Spelling & dictionary notes on barra vs burla

barra and burla are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barra is recorded at frequency rank #2,355, classified as anoun. burla is at rank #45,223, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbuɾ.lɐ/.

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 47578, this pair ranks #17,660 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of barra vs burla

Shared letters: abr. Private to "barra": -. Private to "burla": lu.

"barra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "burla" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barra ← abrra · bara · barar · bbarra · brara
  • burla ← bburla · brula · bulra · bural · burlla · burrla · ubrla

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "barra" and "burla" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "barra" vs "burla" - which ranks higher?
"barra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,355 in our Portuguese list, against #45,223 for "burla". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "barra" vs "burla" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "burla" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,660 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barra" and "burla" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "borla vs burla". 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 #17,660 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