Which to use
“melão” is a noun and “mesmo” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #17,854
- “melão” frequency rank
- #56
- “mesmo” frequency rank
- 17910
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | melão | mesmo |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | o fruto do meloeiro, Cucumis melo | que tem igualdade de caráter |
Where the eye mixes melão and mesmo
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: melão vs mesmo
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: melão is /mɨ.ˈlɐ̃w̃/ while mesmo is /ˈmeʒ.mu/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17910, 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/. mesmo is at rank #56, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈmeʒ.mu/.
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 17910, this pair ranks #53,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of melão vs mesmo
Shared letters: emo. Private to "melão": lã. Private to "mesmo": s.
"melão" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "mesmo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- mesmo ← emsmo · memso · mesmmo · mesom · messmo · mmesmo · msemo
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "melão" and "mesmo" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "melão" or "mesmo" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "melão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mesmo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #53,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "melão" and "mesmo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "melado vs melão". 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 #53,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.