bossavsbostaTell them apart

Quick tell: bossa is a noun, bosta is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bossa” is a noun and “bosta” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,713
“bossa” frequency rank
#11,401
“bosta” frequency rank
29114
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bossa bosta
Definition protuberância anormal, nas costas ou no peito, resultante do desvio da espinha dorsal ou do esterno; corcova, geba, giba ruim

Letter map: bossa vs bosta

Shared letters muted; letters that set bossa and bosta apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. bossa and bosta follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
bossa
5 ch
bosta

Role in the sentence - bossa and bosta

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bossa is anoun and bostaanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - s in “bossa” becomes t in “bosta”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29114, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bossa is recorded at frequency rank #17,713, classified as anoun. bosta is at rank #11,401, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɔʃ.tɐ/.

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 29114, this pair ranks #39,590 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bossa vs bosta

Shared letters: abos. Private to "bossa": -. Private to "bosta": t.

"bossa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "bosta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bossa ← bbossa · bosa · bosas · bsosa · obssa
  • bosta ← bbosta · bosat · bossta · bostta · botsa · bsota · obsta

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bossa" and "bosta" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bossa" is a noun and "bosta" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bossa" or "bosta" show up more?
"bosta" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,401 in our Portuguese list, against #17,713 for "bossa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "bossa" vs "bosta" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bossa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bosta" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,590 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bossa" and "bosta" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "boda vs bossa". 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 #39,590 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