bocãovsButãoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#40,450
“bocão” frequency rank
#19,076
“Butão” frequency rank
59526
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bocão Butão
Definition que fala mais da conta, linguarudo Reino do Butão: pequeno reino sem contato com o mar; faz fronteira com a China, a norte, e com a Índia, a sul

Letter map: bocão vs Butão

Shared letters muted; letters that set bocão and Butão apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. bocão and Butão 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
Butão

Role in the sentence - bocão and Butão

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bocão is anadjective and Butãoanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59526, 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/. Butão is at rank #19,076, tagged as anoun.

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 59526, this pair ranks #8,133 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bocão vs Butão

Shared letters: boã. Private to "bocão": c. Private to "Butão": tu.

"bocão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "Butão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bocão" for "Butão" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bocão" is an adjective and "Butão" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bocão" or "Butão"?
"Butão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,076 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.

What to do next

You've compared "bocão" and "Butão". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bocão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Butão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,133 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bocão" and "Butão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bocão vs borrão". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #8,133 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