mercêvsmuerteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14,186
“mercê” frequency rank
#31,882
“muerte” frequency rank
46068
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mercê muerte
Definition paga, soldada, preço ou recompensa por algum trabalho ou serviço morte

Letter map: mercê vs muerte

Shared letters muted; letters that set mercê and muerte apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mercê runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against muerte's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
mercê
6 ch
muerte

Pair insight - mercê / muerte

mercê and muerte 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 46068, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mercê is recorded at frequency rank #14,186, classified as anoun. muerte is at rank #31,882, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mwer.te/.

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 46068, this pair ranks #19,291 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mercê vs muerte

Shared letters: emr. Private to "mercê": cê. Private to "muerte": tu.

"mercê" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "muerte" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • muerte ← meurte · mmuerte · mueret · muerrte · muertte · muetre · murete · umerte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mercê" and "muerte" 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.
Frequency check: "mercê" vs "muerte" - which ranks higher?
"mercê" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,186 in our Portuguese list, against #31,882 for "muerte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "mercê" and "muerte". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mercê" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muerte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,291 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mercê" and "muerte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mercê vs messe". 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 #19,291 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