menvsmenteTell them apart

Quick tell: men is a pronoun, mente is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“men” is a pronoun and “mente” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,318
“men” frequency rank
#990
“mente” frequency rank
7308
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature men mente
Definition pronome indefinido da terceira pessoa do singular, equivalente à partícula "se" conjunto das ideias e convicções de uma pessoa; o resultado do trabalho cerebral de uma pessoal, intangível mas perceptível em sua forma de raciocinar

Letter map: men vs mente

Shared letters muted; letters that set men and mente apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
men
5 ch
mente

Grammar separator: men vs mente

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: men is apronoun and menteanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “men” sits inside “mente”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7308, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

men is recorded at frequency rank #6,318, classified as apron. mente is at rank #990, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmẽ.t͡ʃi/.

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 7308, this pair ranks #66,853 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of men vs mente

Shared letters: emn. Private to "men": -. Private to "mente": t.

"men" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mente" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • menteemnte · menet · mennte · mentte · metne · mmente · mnete

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "men" and "mente" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "men" is a pronoun and "mente" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "men" or "mente"?
"mente" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #990 in our Portuguese list, against #6,318 for "men". 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 "men" and "mente".

  • Full dictionary entry for "men" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mente" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #66,853 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "men" and "mente" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs men". 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 #66,853 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