mervsmercêTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,090
“mer” frequency rank
#14,186
“mercê” frequency rank
36276
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mer mercê
Definition mar paga, soldada, preço ou recompensa por algum trabalho ou serviço

Letter map: mer vs mercê

Shared letters muted; letters that set mer and mercê apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mer runs 3 letters (CVC) against mercê's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
mer
5 ch
mercê

Corpus notes: mer and mercê

mer and mercê 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 2 extra letter(s) - “mer” sits inside “mercê”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36276, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mer is recorded at frequency rank #22,090, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɛʁ/. mercê is at rank #14,186, 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 36276, this pair ranks #30,583 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mer vs mercê

Shared letters: emr. Private to "mer": -. Private to "mercê": cê.

"mer" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mercê" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mer" and "mercê" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mer” sits inside “mercê”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "mer" vs "mercê" - which ranks higher?
"mercê" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,186 in our Portuguese list, against #22,090 for "mer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "mer" vs "mercê" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mercê" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,583 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mer" and "mercê" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mer". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #30,583 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