mamãvsmemoConfusable pair

Quick tell: mamã is a noun, memo is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mamã” is a noun and “memo” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,037
“mamã” frequency rank
#35,681
“memo” frequency rank
64718
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mamã memo
Definition mãe mesmo

Letter map: mamã vs memo

Shared letters muted; letters that set mamã and memo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. mamã and memo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
mamã
4 ch
memo

Part-of-speech tell for mamã / memo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mamã is anoun and memoanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64718, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mamã is recorded at frequency rank #29,037, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɜˈmɜ̃/. memo is at rank #35,681, tagged as anadv.

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 64718, this pair ranks #5,658 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mamã vs memo

Shared letters: m. Private to "mamã": aã. Private to "memo": eo.

"mamã" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "memo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • memo ← emmo · memmo · meom · mmemo · mmeo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mamã" and "memo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mamã" is a noun and "memo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mamã" or "memo" show up more?
"mamã" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,037 in our Portuguese list, against #35,681 for "memo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mamã" and "memo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mamã" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "memo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,658 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mamã" and "memo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "memo vs muso". 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 #5,658 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