bomvsbotaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#96
“bom” frequency rank
#8,725
“bota” frequency rank
8821
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bom bota
Definition que corresponde plenamente ao que é exigido, desejado ou esperado quanto à sua natureza, adequação, função, eficácia, funcionamento etc. (falando de ser ou coisa) calçado que cobre o pé e parte da canela

Letter map: bom vs bota

Shared letters muted; letters that set bom and bota apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
bom
4 ch
bota

Part-of-speech tell for bom / bota

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bom is anadjective and botaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8821, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bom is recorded at frequency rank #96, classified as anadj. bota is at rank #8,725, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɔ.tə/.

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 8821, this pair ranks #64,819 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bom vs bota

Shared letters: bo. Private to "bom": m. Private to "bota": at.

"bom" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "bota" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • botabbota · botta · btoa · obta

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bom" for "bota" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bom" is an adjective and "bota" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "bom" vs "bota" - which ranks higher?
"bom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #96 in our Portuguese list, against #8,725 for "bota". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "bom" vs "bota" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bom" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bota" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,819 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bom" and "bota" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bolota vs bota". 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 #64,819 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