bocadovsbotãoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“bocado” and “botão” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#6,269
“bocado” frequency rank
#4,293
“botão” frequency rank
10562
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bocado botão
Definition porção de alimento que se mete na boca de uma só vez dispositivo encontrado em máquinas usado - pressionando - para mudar o estado da máquina, começar ou parar um processo

Where the eye mixes bocado and botão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bocado runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against botão's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
bocado
5 ch
botão

Look-alike desk: bocado vs botão

A purely visual mix-up. bocado (/bu.ˈka.du/) and botão (/bu.ˈtɐ̃w̃/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10562, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bocado is recorded at frequency rank #6,269, classified as anoun, pronounced /bu.ˈka.du/. botão is at rank #4,293, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bu.ˈtɐ̃w̃/.

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 10562, this pair ranks #62,501 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bocado vs botão

Shared letters: bo. Private to "bocado": acd. Private to "botão": tã.

"bocado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "botão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bocado ← bbocado · bcoado · boacdo · bocaddo · bocaod · boccado · bocdao · obcado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bocado" for "botão" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/bu.ˈka.du/ versus /bu.ˈtɐ̃w̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bocado" vs "botão" - which ranks higher?
"botão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,293 in our Portuguese list, against #6,269 for "bocado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bocado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "botão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,501 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bocado" and "botão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "borrão vs botão". 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 #62,501 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