borrarvsburraTell them apart

Quick tell: borrar is a verb, burra is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“borrar” is a verb and “burra” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,857
“borrar” frequency rank
#12,384
“burra” frequency rank
54241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature borrar burra
Definition cobrir com bosta a eira terrosa, previamente à malha do cereal, para assim facilitar a lavoura. engenho para tirar água de um poço

Where the eye mixes borrar and burra

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

6 ch
borrar
5 ch
burra

Look-alike desk: borrar vs burra

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: borrar is /bo.ˈraɾ/ while burra is /ˈbu.xɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54241, 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/. burra is at rank #12,384, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbu.xɐ/.

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 54241, this pair ranks #11,411 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of borrar vs burra

Shared letters: abr. Private to "borrar": o. Private to "burra": u.

"borrar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "burra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • borrar ← bborrar · borarr · borrarr · borrra · brorar · obrrar
  • burra ← bburra · brura · bura · burar · ubrra

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "borrar" and "burra" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "borrar" is a verb and "burra" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "borrar" vs "burra" - which ranks higher?
"burra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,384 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "borrar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "burra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,411 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "borrar" and "burra" 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 #11,411 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