marcavsmocaWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,013
“marca” frequency rank
#39,266
“moca” frequency rank
40279
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marca moca
Definition ato ou efeito de marcar torpe, pasmão

Where the eye mixes marca and moca

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
marca
4 ch
moca

Visual trap between marca and moca

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marca is /ˈmaɾ.kɐ/ while moca is /ˈmɔ.kɐ/. 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 40279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marca is recorded at frequency rank #1,013, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmaɾ.kɐ/. moca is at rank #39,266, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈmɔ.kɐ/.

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 40279, this pair ranks #25,861 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of marca vs moca

Shared letters: acm. Private to "marca": r. Private to "moca": o.

"marca" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "moca" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marcaamrca · macra · marac · marcca · marrca · mmarca · mraca
  • mocamcoa · mmoca · moac · mocca · omca

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "marca" for "moca" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marca" is a noun and "moca" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "marca" or "moca"?
"marca" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,013 in our Portuguese list, against #39,266 for "moca". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "moca" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,861 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marca" and "moca" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs moca". 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 #25,861 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