bisvsbluWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: bis is a preposition, blu is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#14,300
“bis” frequency rank
#15,516
“blu” frequency rank
29816
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bis blu
Definition até azul

Letter map: bis vs blu

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

3 ch
bis
3 ch
blu

Part-of-speech tell for bis / blu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bis is apreposition and bluanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29816, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bis is recorded at frequency rank #14,300, classified as aprep. blu is at rank #15,516, tagged as anadj, pronounced /blu/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 29816, this pair ranks #38,753 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bis vs blu

Shared letters: b. Private to "bis": is. Private to "blu": lu.

"bis" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "blu" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bis" for "blu" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bis" is a preposition and "blu" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "bis" vs "blu" - which ranks higher?
"bis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,300 in our Portuguese list, against #15,516 for "blu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "bis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,753 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bis" and "blu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bile vs blu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #38,753 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