bat vs but, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“bat” is a noun and “but” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,374
“bat” frequency rank: #7,254
“but” frequency rank: 28628
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	bat	but
Definition	morcego	mas, porém, todavia

Letter map: bat vs but

Shared letters muted; letters that set bat and but apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

bat

3 ch

but

Role in the sentence - bat and but

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bat is anoun and butaconjunction. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “bat” becomes u in “but”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28628, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bat is recorded at frequency rank #21,374, classified as anoun, pronounced /bæt/. but is at rank #7,254, tagged as aconj.

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 28628, this pair ranks #40,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bat vs but

Shared letters: bt. Private to "bat": a. Private to "but": u.

"bat" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "but" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bat" for "but" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bat" is a noun and "but" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bat" or "but" show up more?

"but" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,254 in our Portuguese list, against #21,374 for "bat". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "bat" vs "but" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "bat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "but" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #40,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"bat" and "but" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bat vs bué". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #40,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.