manovsmemoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#3,493
“mano” frequency rank
#35,681
“memo” frequency rank
39174
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mano memo
Definition irmão (todas as acepções, exceto Religião) mesmo

Letter map: mano vs memo

Shared letters muted; letters that set mano and memo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mano
4 ch
memo

Grammar separator: mano vs memo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mano 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 39174, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mano is recorded at frequency rank #3,493, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmã.nu/. 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 39174, this pair ranks #27,137 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mano vs memo

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mano": an. Private to "memo": e.

"mano" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "memo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manoamno · manno · maon · mmano · mnao
  • memoemmo · memmo · meom · mmemo · mmeo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mano" and "memo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mano" is a noun and "memo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mano" or "memo" show up more?
"mano" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,493 in our Portuguese list, against #35,681 for "memo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mano" 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 #27,137 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mano" 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 #27,137 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