bonvsbonéTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#10,479
“bon” frequency rank
#13,026
“boné” frequency rank
23505
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bon boné
Definition bom chapéu com pala na parte frontal

Letter map: bon vs boné

Shared letters muted; letters that set bon and boné apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
bon
4 ch
boné

Part-of-speech tell for bon / boné

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bon is anadjective and bonéanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “bon” sits inside “boné”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23505, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bon is recorded at frequency rank #10,479, classified as anadj. boné is at rank #13,026, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bo.ˈnɛ/.

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 23505, this pair ranks #46,315 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bon vs boné

Shared letters: bno. Private to "bon": -. Private to "boné": é.

"bon" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "boné" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bon" and "boné" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bon" is an adjective and "boné" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "bon" vs "boné" - which ranks higher?
"bon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,479 in our Portuguese list, against #13,026 for "boné". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "bon" vs "boné" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "boné" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,315 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bon" and "boné" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bile vs boné". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #46,315 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