bomvsbroaConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#96
“bom” frequency rank
#41,861
“broa” frequency rank
41957
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bom broa
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) pão de milho

Letter map: bom vs broa

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

3 ch
bom
4 ch
broa

Part-of-speech tell for bom / broa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bom is anadjective and broaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41957, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bom is recorded at frequency rank #96, classified as anadj. broa is at rank #41,861, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɾo.ɐ/.

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 41957, this pair ranks #23,888 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bom vs broa

Shared letters: bo. Private to "bom": m. Private to "broa": ar.

"bom" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "broa" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • broabbroa · brao · brroa · rboa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bom" for "broa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bom" is an adjective and "broa" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bom" or "broa"?
"bom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #96 in our Portuguese list, against #41,861 for "broa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "bom" and "broa".

  • Full dictionary entry for "bom" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "broa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,888 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bom" and "broa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brio vs broa". 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 #23,888 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