mayovsmusoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,251
“mayo” frequency rank
#48,023
“muso” frequency rank
78274
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mayo muso
Definition maio homem que inspira o bem-querer de outras pessoas por conta de sua boa aparência, belo físico e ademais por vezes também incluindo-se a estes o seu carisma

Letter map: mayo vs muso

Shared letters muted; letters that set mayo and muso apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. mayo (CVVV) and muso (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
mayo
4 ch
muso

Spelling & dictionary notes on mayo vs muso

mayo and muso are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78274, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mayo is recorded at frequency rank #30,251, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈma.ʝo/. muso is at rank #48,023, tagged as anoun.

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 78274, this pair ranks #1,708 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mayo vs muso

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mayo": ay. Private to "muso": su.

"mayo" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "muso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mayo ← amyo · maoy · mayyo · mmayo · myao
  • muso ← mmuso · msuo · muos · musso · umso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mayo" for "muso" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mayo" or "muso" show up more?
"mayo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,251 in our Portuguese list, against #48,023 for "muso". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "mayo" and "muso". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mayo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,708 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mayo" and "muso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mist 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 #1,708 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