medovsmoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#379
“medo” frequency rank
#4,745
“mo” frequency rank
5124
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature medo mo
Definition que pertence ou se refere à Média combinação de me (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono) e o (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono, pronome demonstrativo masculino ou pronome demonstrativo neutro)

Where the eye mixes medo and mo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
medo
2 ch
mo

Visual trap between medo and mo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medo is AFI: /'me.du/ while mo is /mo/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5124, 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/. mo is at rank #4,745, tagged as apron, pronounced /mo/.

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 5124, this pair ranks #69,581 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of medo vs mo

Shared letters: mo. Private to "medo": de. Private to "mo": -.

"medo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mo" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • medoemdo · mdeo · meddo · meod · mmedo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "medo" and "mo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "medo" is an adjective and "mo" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "medo" vs "mo" - which ranks higher?
"medo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #379 in our Portuguese list, against #4,745 for "mo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "medo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,581 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "medo" and "mo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mo". 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 #69,581 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