bordadovsbordãoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#23,224
“bordado” frequency rank
#30,857
“bordão” frequency rank
54081
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bordado bordão
Definition guarnecido com borda vara de apoio

Letter map: bordado vs bordão

Shared letters muted; letters that set bordado and bordão apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. bordado runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against bordão's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
bordado
6 ch
bordão

Role in the sentence - bordado and bordão

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bordado is anadjective and bordãoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bordado is recorded at frequency rank #23,224, classified as anadj, pronounced /buɾ.ˈda.du/. bordão is at rank #30,857, tagged as anoun.

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 54081, this pair ranks #11,563 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bordado vs bordão

Shared letters: bdor. Private to "bordado": a. Private to "bordão": ã.

"bordado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "bordão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bordado ← bbordado · bodrado · boraddo · bordaddo · bordaod · borddado · borddao · borrdado

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bordado" and "bordão" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bordado" is an adjective and "bordão" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bordado" or "bordão"?
"bordado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,224 in our Portuguese list, against #30,857 for "bordão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "bordado" vs "bordão" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bordado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bordão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,563 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bordado" and "bordão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bordão vs borrão". 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 #11,563 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