Which to use
“medo” is an adjective and “mofo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #379
- “medo” frequency rank
- #29,442
- “mofo” frequency rank
- 29821
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | medo | mofo |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | que pertence ou se refere à Média | espécie de fungo de tamanho pequeno que coloniza a matéria orgânica rica em nutrientes, têm um micélio filamentoso e enramado que é a forma macroscópica visível como borra ou pelo |
Where the eye mixes medo and mofo
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. medo and mofo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses medo with mofo
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medo is AFI: /'me.du/ while mofo is /ˈmo.fu/. 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 29821, 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/. mofo is at rank #29,442, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmo.fu/.
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 29821, this pair ranks #38,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of medo vs mofo
Shared letters: mo. Private to "medo": de. Private to "mofo": f.
"medo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mofo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "medo" for "mofo" ever safe?
Which is more common, "medo" or "mofo"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "medo" and "mofo" 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 "mofo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #38,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "medo" and "mofo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mofo 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 #38,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.