body vs by, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“body” is a noun and “by” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,578
“body” frequency rank: #1,598
“by” frequency rank: 10176
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	body	by
Definition	corpo	por;

Letter map: body vs by

Shared letters muted; letters that set body and by apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

body

2 ch

Role in the sentence - body and by

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: body is anoun and byapreposition. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

body is recorded at frequency rank #8,578, classified as anoun. by is at rank #1,598, tagged as aprep.

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 10176, this pair ranks #63,013 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of body vs by

Shared letters: by. Private to "body": do. Private to "by": -.

"body" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "by" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

body ← bbody · bdoy · boddy · bodyy · boyd · obdy

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "body" for "by" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "body" is a noun and "by" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "body" vs "by" - which ranks higher?

"by" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,598 in our Portuguese list, against #8,578 for "body". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "body" and "by". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "body" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "by" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #63,013 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"body" and "by" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "body vs busy". 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 #63,013 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.