medo vs mens, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#379
“medo” frequency rank: #47,487
“mens” frequency rank: 47866
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	medo	mens
Definition	que pertence ou se refere à Média	pessoa, humano, homem

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set medo and mens apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

medo

4 ch

mens

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medo is AFI: /'me.du/ while mens is [ mɛns ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

medo is recorded at frequency rank #379, classified as anadj, pronounced AFI: /'me.du/. mens is at rank #47,487, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ mɛns ].

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 47866, this pair ranks #17,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of medo vs mens

Shared letters: em. Private to "medo": do. Private to "mens": ns.

"medo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mens" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

medo ← emdo · mdeo · meddo · meod · mmedo
mens ← emns · menns · menss · mesn · mmens · mnes

Frequency comparison

medo#379

mens#47,487

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "medo" and "mens" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "medo" is an adjective and "mens" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "medo" or "mens"?

"medo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #379 in our Portuguese list, against #47,487 for "mens". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering medo vs mens

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “medo”; for a noun, it's “mens”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “medo” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable