beervsbelaTell them apart

Quick tell: beer is a noun, bela is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“beer” is a noun and “bela” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,070
“beer” frequency rank
#1,837
“bela” frequency rank
20907
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature beer bela
Definition urso bonito(a), lindo(a)

Where the eye mixes beer and bela

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
beer
4 ch
bela

Why the eye confuses beer with bela

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: beer is /beːr/ while bela is /ˈbɛ.la/.. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20907, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

beer is recorded at frequency rank #19,070, classified as anoun, pronounced /beːr/. bela is at rank #1,837, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɛ.la/..

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 20907, this pair ranks #49,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of beer vs bela

Shared letters: be. Private to "beer": r. Private to "bela": al.

"beer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "bela" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • beerbeerr · ber · bere · eber
  • belabbela · beal · blea · ebla

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "beer" and "bela" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "beer" is a noun and "bela" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "beer" vs "bela" - which ranks higher?
"bela" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,837 in our Portuguese list, against #19,070 for "beer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "beer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bela" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "beer" and "bela" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "beer vs bué". 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 #49,500 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