bocãovsbotãoConfusable pair

Quick tell: bocão is a adjective, botão is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#40,450
“bocão” frequency rank
#4,293
“botão” frequency rank
44743
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bocão botão
Definition que fala mais da conta, linguarudo dispositivo encontrado em máquinas usado - pressionando - para mudar o estado da máquina, começar ou parar um processo

Where the eye mixes bocão and botão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bocão and botão follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
bocão
5 ch
botão

Look-alike desk: bocão vs botão

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bocão is /bo.'koŋ/ while botão is /bu.ˈtɐ̃w̃/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - c in “bocão” becomes t in “botão”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bocão is recorded at frequency rank #40,450, classified as anadj, pronounced /bo.'koŋ/. 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 44743, this pair ranks #20,686 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bocão vs botão

Shared letters: boã. Private to "bocão": c. Private to "botão": t.

"bocão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "botão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bocão" for "botão" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bocão" is an adjective and "botão" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bocão" or "botão"?
"botão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,293 in our Portuguese list, against #40,450 for "bocão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "bocão" 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 #20,686 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bocão" and "botão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bocão vs borrão". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #20,686 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