brutovsbutWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bruto is a adjective, but is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#5,918
“bruto” frequency rank
#7,254
“but” frequency rank
13172
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bruto but
Definition néscio, incapaz mas, porém, todavia

Letter map: bruto vs but

Shared letters muted; letters that set bruto and but apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
bruto
3 ch
but

Part-of-speech tell for bruto / but

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bruto is anadjective and butaconjunction. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13172, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bruto is recorded at frequency rank #5,918, classified as anadj. but is at rank #7,254, tagged as aconj.

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 13172, this pair ranks #59,268 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bruto vs but

Shared letters: btu. Private to "bruto": or. Private to "but": -.

"bruto" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "but" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brutobbruto · brruto · brtuo · bruot · brutto · burto · rbuto

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "bruto" and "but" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bruto" is an adjective and "but" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "bruto" or "but" show up more?
"bruto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,918 in our Portuguese list, against #7,254 for "but". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "bruto" and "but".

  • Full dictionary entry for "bruto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "but" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,268 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bruto" and "but" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bué vs but". 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 #59,268 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