marcadovsmarcoTell them apart

Quick tell: marcado is a adjective, marco is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#2,487
“marcado” frequency rank
#1,754
“marco” frequency rank
4241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marcado marco
Definition assinalado com marca sinal de demarcação que se põe nos limites territoriais

Where the eye mixes marcado and marco

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. marcado runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against marco's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
marcado
5 ch
marco

Why the eye confuses marcado with marco

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: marcado is /mɐɾ.ˈka.du/ while marco is /ˈmaɾ.ku/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marcado is recorded at frequency rank #2,487, classified as anadj, pronounced /mɐɾ.ˈka.du/. marco is at rank #1,754, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmaɾ.ku/.

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 4241, this pair ranks #70,733 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of marcado vs marco

Shared letters: acmor. Private to "marcado": d. Private to "marco": -.

"marcado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "marco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marcado ← amrcado · macrado · maracdo · marcaddo · marcaod · marccado · marcdao · marrcado
  • marco ← amrco · macro · marcco · maroc · marrco · mmarco · mraco

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "marcado" and "marco" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marcado" is an adjective and "marco" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "marcado" vs "marco" - which ranks higher?
"marco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,754 in our Portuguese list, against #2,487 for "marcado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "marcado" and "marco" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marcado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,733 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marcado" and "marco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malho vs marco". 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 #70,733 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