bondevsbordaTell them apart

Quick tell: bonde is a noun, borda is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bonde” is a noun and “borda” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,269
“bonde” frequency rank
#8,724
“borda” frequency rank
23993
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bonde borda
Definition título da dívida pública pagável ao portador terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo bordar

Where the eye mixes bonde and borda

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bonde and borda follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
bonde
5 ch
borda

Look-alike desk: bonde vs borda

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bonde is /ˈbõⁿ.ʤɪ/ while borda is /ˈbɔɾ.dɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23993, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bonde is recorded at frequency rank #15,269, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbõⁿ.ʤɪ/. borda is at rank #8,724, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈbɔɾ.dɐ/.

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 23993, this pair ranks #45,728 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bonde vs borda

Shared letters: bdo. Private to "bonde": en. Private to "borda": ar.

"bonde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "borda" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bonde ← bbonde · bnode · bodne · bondde · boned · bonnde · obnde
  • borda ← bborda · bodra · borad · bordda · borrda · broda · obrda

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bonde" for "borda" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bonde" is a noun and "borda" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bonde" or "borda" show up more?
"borda" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,724 in our Portuguese list, against #15,269 for "bonde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bonde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "borda" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,728 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bonde" and "borda" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "boda vs bonde". 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 #45,728 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