bordãovsborrãoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,857
“bordão” frequency rank
#48,282
“borrão” frequency rank
79139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bordão borrão
Definition vara de apoio sujidade

Letter map: bordão vs borrão

Shared letters muted; letters that set bordão and borrão apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. bordão and borrão follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
bordão
6 ch
borrão

Spelling & dictionary notes on bordão vs borrão

bordão and borrão 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 differ by a single letter - d in “bordão” becomes r in “borrão”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bordão is recorded at frequency rank #30,857, classified as anoun. borrão is at rank #48,282, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bu.ˈRɐ̃w̃/.

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 79139, this pair ranks #1,542 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bordão vs borrão

Shared letters: borã. Private to "bordão": d. Private to "borrão": -.

"bordão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "borrão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bordão" and "borrão" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by a single letter - d in “bordão” becomes r in “borrão”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "bordão" vs "borrão" - which ranks higher?
"bordão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,857 in our Portuguese list, against #48,282 for "borrão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "bordão" vs "borrão" 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 "borrão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,542 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bordão" and "borrão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "borrão vs borrego". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,542 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