melãovsmençãoTell them apart

Which to use

“melão” and “menção” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,854
“melão” frequency rank
#6,557
“menção” frequency rank
24411
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature melão menção
Definition o fruto do meloeiro, Cucumis melo ato de mencionar

Letter map: melão vs menção

Shared letters muted; letters that set melão and menção apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. melão runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against menção's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
melão
6 ch
menção

Spelling & dictionary notes on melão vs menção

melão and menção are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24411, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

melão is recorded at frequency rank #17,854, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɨ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/. menção is at rank #6,557, tagged as anoun.

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 24411, this pair ranks #45,216 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of melão vs menção

Shared letters: emoã. Private to "melão": l. Private to "menção": nç.

"melão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "menção" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "melão" and "menção" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "melão" or "menção"?
"menção" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,557 in our Portuguese list, against #17,854 for "melão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "melão" and "menção".

  • Full dictionary entry for "melão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "menção" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,216 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "melão" and "menção" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "melado vs melão". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #45,216 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