Which to use
“bom” is an adjective and “bow” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #96
- “bom” frequency rank
- #22,885
- “bow” frequency rank
- 22981
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bom | bow |
|---|---|---|
| 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) | arco |
Letter map: bom vs bow
Shared letters muted; letters that set bom and bow apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for bom / bow
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bom is anadjective and bowanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - m in “bom” becomes w in “bow”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22981, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bom is recorded at frequency rank #96, classified as anadj. bow is at rank #22,885, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bəʊ/.
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 22981, this pair ranks #46,934 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of bom vs bow
Shared letters: bo. Private to "bom": m. Private to "bow": w.
"bom" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "bow" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "bom" and "bow" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bom" or "bow" show up more?
What to do next
Pair "bom" vs "bow" 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 "bow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #46,934 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bom" and "bow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bow vs bué". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #46,934 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.