medovsmeshWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: medo is a adjective, mesh is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#379
“medo” frequency rank
#43,032
“mesh” frequency rank
43411
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature medo mesh
Definition que pertence ou se refere à Média interstício

Where the eye mixes medo and mesh

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. medo (CVCV) and mesh (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
medo
4 ch
mesh

Why the eye confuses medo with mesh

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medo is AFI: /'me.du/ while mesh is /ˈmɛʃ/. 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 43411, 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/. mesh is at rank #43,032, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛʃ/.

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 43411, this pair ranks #22,230 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of medo vs mesh

Shared letters: em. Private to "medo": do. Private to "mesh": hs.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • medo ← emdo · mdeo · meddo · meod · mmedo
  • mesh ← emsh · mehs · meshh · messh · mmesh · mseh

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "medo" and "mesh" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "medo" is an adjective and "mesh" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "medo" or "mesh"?
"medo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #379 in our Portuguese list, against #43,032 for "mesh". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "medo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mesh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,230 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "medo" and "mesh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mesh 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 #22,230 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