marévsmoteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,659
“maré” frequency rank
#18,928
“mote” frequency rank
26587
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maré mote
Definition movimento periódico de subida e descida das águas do mar partícula de pó

Where the eye mixes maré and mote

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
maré
4 ch
mote

Look-alike desk: maré vs mote

A purely visual mix-up. maré (/mɐ.ˈɾɛ/) and mote (/moʊt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26587, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maré is recorded at frequency rank #7,659, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɐ.ˈɾɛ/. mote is at rank #18,928, tagged as anoun, pronounced /moʊt/.

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 26587, this pair ranks #42,553 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maré vs mote

Shared letters: m. Private to "maré": aré. Private to "mote": eot.

"maré" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • motemmote · moet · motte · mtoe · omte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maré" and "mote" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/mɐ.ˈɾɛ/ versus /moʊt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "maré" vs "mote" - which ranks higher?
"maré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,659 in our Portuguese list, against #18,928 for "mote". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "maré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mote" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,553 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maré" and "mote" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mote vs muto". 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 #42,553 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