medovsmutoConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#379
“medo” frequency rank
#43,549
“muto” frequency rank
43928
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature medo muto
Definition que pertence ou se refere à Média mudar algo de sítio, remover.

Where the eye mixes medo and muto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. medo and muto follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
medo
4 ch
muto

Look-alike desk: medo vs muto

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medo is AFI: /'me.du/ while muto is /ˈmuː.toː/. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43928, 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/. muto is at rank #43,549, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈmuː.toː/.

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 43928, this pair ranks #21,644 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of medo vs muto

Shared letters: mo. Private to "medo": de. Private to "muto": tu.

"medo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "muto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • medo ← emdo · mdeo · meddo · meod · mmedo
  • muto ← mmuto · mtuo · muot · mutto · umto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "medo" and "muto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "medo" is an adjective and "muto" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "medo" or "muto"?
"medo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #379 in our Portuguese list, against #43,549 for "muto". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "medo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,644 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "medo" and "muto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "muso vs muto". 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 #21,644 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