Which to use
“meia” is a noun and “miau” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,054
- “meia” frequency rank
- #34,812
- “miau” frequency rank
- 35866
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | meia | miau |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | peça de vestuário de tecido de malha que se calça sobre a pele até meio da perna | minhau |
Where the eye mixes meia and miau
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. meia and miau follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between meia and miau
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meia is /ˈmɐj.ɐ/ while miau is /miˈaʊ̯/ ouvir^(fonte ?). Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
meia is recorded at frequency rank #1,054, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɐj.ɐ/. miau is at rank #34,812, tagged as anintj, pronounced /miˈaʊ̯/ ouvir^(fonte ?).
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 35866, this pair ranks #31,092 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of meia vs miau
Shared letters: aim. Private to "meia": e. Private to "miau": u.
"meia" · 4 letters · shape CVVV · "miau" · 4 letters · shape CVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "meia" for "miau" ever safe?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "meia" or "miau" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "meia" and "miau" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "meia" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "miau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #31,092 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "meia" and "miau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs miau". 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 #31,092 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.