baúvsbisTell them apart

Quick tell: baú is a noun, bis is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“baú” is a noun and “bis” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,895
“baú” frequency rank
#14,300
“bis” frequency rank
28195
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature baú bis
Definition caixa retangular com tampa convexa e geralmente revestida de couro cru até

Letter map: baú vs bis

Shared letters muted; letters that set baú and bis apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
baú
3 ch
bis

Part-of-speech tell for baú / bis

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: baú is anoun and bisapreposition. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28195, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

baú is recorded at frequency rank #13,895, classified as anoun, pronounced /ba.ˈu/. bis is at rank #14,300, tagged as aprep.

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 28195, this pair ranks #40,649 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of baú vs bis

Shared letters: b. Private to "baú": . Private to "bis": is.

"baú" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "bis" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "baú" and "bis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "baú" is a noun and "bis" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "baú" or "bis" show up more?
"baú" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,895 in our Portuguese list, against #14,300 for "bis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "baú" and "bis". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "baú" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,649 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "baú" and "bis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bile vs bis". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #40,649 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