branvsbrasaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#29,613
“bran” frequency rank
#18,521
“brasa” frequency rank
48134
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bran brasa
Definition farelo. que é muito belo

Where the eye mixes bran and brasa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bran runs 4 letters (CCVC) against brasa's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
bran
5 ch
brasa

Look-alike desk: bran vs brasa

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bran is /bræn/ while brasa is /ˈbɾa.zə/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48134, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bran is recorded at frequency rank #29,613, classified as anoun, pronounced /bræn/. brasa is at rank #18,521, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɾa.zə/.

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 48134, this pair ranks #17,076 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bran vs brasa

Shared letters: abr. Private to "bran": n. Private to "brasa": s.

"bran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "brasa" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bran ← barn · bbran · brann · brna · brran · rban
  • brasa ← barsa · bbrasa · braas · brassa · brrasa · brsaa · rbasa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bran" and "brasa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bran" is a noun and "brasa" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bran" or "brasa" show up more?
"brasa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,521 in our Portuguese list, against #29,613 for "bran". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bran" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brasa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,076 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bran" and "brasa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brains vs bran". 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 #17,076 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