mediarvsmédicoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mediar is a verb, médico is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mediar” is a verb and “médico” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,080
“mediar” frequency rank
#968
“médico” frequency rank
34048
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mediar médico
Definition o mesmo que mear que é relativo à medicina ou a quem a exerce

Letter map: mediar vs médico

Shared letters muted; letters that set mediar and médico apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mediar (CVCVVC) and médico (CVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
mediar
6 ch
médico

Role in the sentence - mediar and médico

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mediar is averb and médicoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34048, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mediar is recorded at frequency rank #33,080, classified as averb, pronounced /mɨ.ˈdjaɾ/. médico is at rank #968, tagged as anadj.

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 34048, this pair ranks #33,316 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mediar vs médico

Shared letters: dim. Private to "mediar": aer. Private to "médico": coé.

"mediar" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "médico" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mediar ← emdiar · mdeiar · medair · meddiar · mediarr · medira · meidar · mmediar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mediar" for "médico" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mediar" is a verb and "médico" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mediar" or "médico" show up more?
"médico" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #968 in our Portuguese list, against #33,080 for "mediar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "mediar" and "médico". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mediar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "médico" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,316 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mediar" and "médico" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mediar vs mendigar". 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 #33,316 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