borrarvsbotarWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#41,857
“borrar” frequency rank
#8,299
“botar” frequency rank
50156
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature borrar botar
Definition cobrir com bosta a eira terrosa, previamente à malha do cereal, para assim facilitar a lavoura. pôr

Where the eye mixes borrar and botar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
borrar
5 ch
botar

Look-alike desk: borrar vs botar

A purely visual mix-up. borrar (/bo.ˈraɾ/) and botar (/bu.ˈtaɾ/) 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 50156, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

borrar is recorded at frequency rank #41,857, classified as averb, pronounced /bo.ˈraɾ/. botar is at rank #8,299, tagged as averb, pronounced /bu.ˈtaɾ/.

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 50156, this pair ranks #14,833 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of borrar vs botar

Shared letters: abor. Private to "borrar": -. Private to "botar": t.

"borrar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "botar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • borrarbborrar · borarr · borrarr · borrra · brorar · obrrar
  • botarbbotar · boatr · botarr · botra · bottar · btoar · obtar

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "borrar" and "botar" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/bo.ˈraɾ/ versus /bu.ˈtaɾ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "borrar" or "botar"?
"botar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,299 in our Portuguese list, against #41,857 for "borrar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "borrar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "botar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,833 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "borrar" and "botar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "borrão vs borrar". 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 #14,833 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