bordãovsborderWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#30,857
“bordão” frequency rank
#20,220
“border” frequency rank
51077
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bordão border
Definition vara de apoio fronteira

Letter map: bordão vs border

Shared letters muted; letters that set bordão and border apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. bordão (CVCCVV) and border (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
bordão
6 ch
border

Corpus notes: bordão and border

bordão and border are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51077, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bordão is recorded at frequency rank #30,857, classified as anoun. border is at rank #20,220, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɔːdə/.

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 51077, this pair ranks #13,926 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bordão vs border

Shared letters: bdor. Private to "bordão": ã. Private to "border": e.

"bordão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "border" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • border ← bborder · bodrer · bordder · borderr · bordre · boredr · borrder · broder

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bordão" and "border" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "bordão" vs "border" - which ranks higher?
"border" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,220 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "bordão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "border" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,926 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bordão" and "border" 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 #13,926 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