medidavsmesadaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,014
“medida” frequency rank
#27,935
“mesada” frequency rank
28949
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature medida mesada
Definition determinada grandeza que serve de padrão para avaliar outra dinheiro recebido todo mês, geralmente dado de pais para filhos, para que estes aprendam como manejar dinheiro (aprender a economizar, etc).

Letter map: medida vs mesada

Shared letters muted; letters that set medida and mesada apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. medida and mesada follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
medida
6 ch
mesada

Pair insight - medida / mesada

medida and mesada 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 28949, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

medida is recorded at frequency rank #1,014, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɨ.ˈdi.dɐ/. mesada is at rank #27,935, 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 28949, this pair ranks #39,802 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of medida vs mesada

Shared letters: adem. Private to "medida": i. Private to "mesada": s.

"medida" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "mesada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • medida ← emdida · mdeida · meddia · meddida · mediad · medidda · meidda · mmedida
  • mesada ← emsada · measda · mesaad · mesadda · mesdaa · messada · mmesada · mseada

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "medida" for "mesada" 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 "medida" or "mesada" show up more?
"medida" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,014 in our Portuguese list, against #27,935 for "mesada". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "medida" and "mesada".

  • Full dictionary entry for "medida" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mesada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,802 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "medida" and "mesada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "melado vs mesada". 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 #39,802 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