burlavsburraWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#45,223
“burla” frequency rank
#12,384
“burra” frequency rank
57607
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature burla burra
Definition ação de burlar engenho para tirar água de um poço

Where the eye mixes burla and burra

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. burla and burra follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
burla
5 ch
burra

Look-alike desk: burla vs burra

A purely visual mix-up. burla (/ˈbuɾ.lɐ/) and burra (/ˈbu.xɐ/) 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 a single letter - l in “burla” becomes r in “burra”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57607, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

burla is recorded at frequency rank #45,223, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbuɾ.lɐ/. 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 57607, this pair ranks #9,234 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of burla vs burra

Shared letters: abru. Private to "burla": l. Private to "burra": -.

"burla" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "burra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • burla ← bburla · brula · bulra · bural · burlla · burrla · ubrla
  • burra ← bburra · brura · bura · burar · ubrra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "burla" and "burra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbuɾ.lɐ/ versus /ˈbu.xɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "burla" 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 #45,223 for "burla". 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 "burla" 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 #9,234 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "burla" and "burra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "borla vs burla". 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 #9,234 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