bondevsboteTell them apart

Which to use

“bonde” and “bote” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,269
“bonde” frequency rank
#13,675
“bote” frequency rank
28944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bonde bote
Definition título da dívida pública pagável ao portador embarcação de pequenas dimensões, fabricada de madeira, alumínio, borracha ou fibra de vidro, movida a remo ou a vela

Where the eye mixes bonde and bote

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bonde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against bote's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
bonde
4 ch
bote

Why the eye confuses bonde with bote

A purely visual mix-up. bonde (/ˈbõⁿ.ʤɪ/) and bote (/ˈbɔti/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28944, 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/. bote is at rank #13,675, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɔti/.

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 28944, this pair ranks #39,806 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bonde vs bote

Shared letters: beo. Private to "bonde": dn. Private to "bote": t.

"bonde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bonde ← bbonde · bnode · bodne · bondde · boned · bonnde · obnde
  • bote ← bbote · boet · botte · btoe · obte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bonde" for "bote" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbõⁿ.ʤɪ/ versus /ˈbɔti/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bonde" or "bote" show up more?
"bote" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,675 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.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "bonde" and "bote" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bonde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bote" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,806 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bonde" and "bote" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bile vs bote". 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 #39,806 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