bordovsborrãoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,456
“bordo” frequency rank
#48,282
“borrão” frequency rank
51738
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bordo borrão
Definition cada um dos lados de um navio sujidade

Where the eye mixes bordo and borrão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bordo runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against borrão's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
bordo
6 ch
borrão

Look-alike desk: bordo vs borrão

A purely visual mix-up. bordo (/ˈbɔɾ.du/) and borrão (/bu.ˈRɐ̃w̃/) 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 51738, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bordo is recorded at frequency rank #3,456, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɔɾ.du/. 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 51738, this pair ranks #13,362 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bordo vs borrão

Shared letters: bor. Private to "bordo": d. Private to "borrão": ã.

"bordo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "borrão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bordo ← bbordo · bodro · borddo · borod · borrdo · brodo · obrdo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bordo" and "borrão" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbɔɾ.du/ versus /bu.ˈRɐ̃w̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bordo" vs "borrão" - which ranks higher?
"bordo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,456 in our Portuguese list, against #48,282 for "borrão". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "bordo" 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 #13,362 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bordo" and "borrão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "borrão vs borrego". 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 #13,362 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