bastavsbastiãoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: basta is a intj, bastião is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“basta” is an intj and “bastião” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,234
“basta” frequency rank
#44,231
“bastião” frequency rank
45465
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature basta bastião
Definition não mais!; chega! parte de uma fortificação construída de modo que as muralhas formam um pentágono irregular

Where the eye mixes basta and bastião

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. basta runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against bastião's 7 (CVCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
basta
7 ch
bastião

Visual trap between basta and bastião

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: basta is /ˈbaʃ.tɐ/ while bastião is /bɐʃ.ˈtjɐ̃w̃/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (intj vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45465, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

basta is recorded at frequency rank #1,234, classified as anintj, pronounced /ˈbaʃ.tɐ/. bastião is at rank #44,231, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɐʃ.ˈtjɐ̃w̃/.

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 45465, this pair ranks #19,933 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of basta vs bastião

Shared letters: abst. Private to "basta": -. Private to "bastião": ioã.

"basta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bastião" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • basta ← absta · basat · bassta · bastta · batsa · bbasta · bsata

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "basta" for "bastião" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "basta" is an intj and "bastião" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "basta" or "bastião"?
"basta" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,234 in our Portuguese list, against #44,231 for "bastião". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "basta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bastião" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,933 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "basta" and "bastião" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "báltico vs bastião". 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 #19,933 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