mesmovsmusoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mesmo is a adjective, muso is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mesmo” is an adjective and “muso” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#56
“mesmo” frequency rank
#48,023
“muso” frequency rank
48079
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mesmo muso
Definition que tem igualdade de caráter homem que inspira o bem-querer de outras pessoas por conta de sua boa aparência, belo físico e ademais por vezes também incluindo-se a estes o seu carisma

Letter map: mesmo vs muso

Shared letters muted; letters that set mesmo and muso apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
mesmo
4 ch
muso

Grammar separator: mesmo vs muso

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mesmo is anadjective and musoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48079, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mesmo is recorded at frequency rank #56, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈmeʒ.mu/. muso is at rank #48,023, 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 48079, this pair ranks #17,129 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mesmo vs muso

Shared letters: mos. Private to "mesmo": e. Private to "muso": u.

"mesmo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "muso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mesmoemsmo · memso · mesmmo · mesom · messmo · mmesmo · msemo
  • musommuso · msuo · muos · musso · umso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mesmo" for "muso" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mesmo" is an adjective and "muso" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mesmo" or "muso" show up more?
"mesmo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #56 in our Portuguese list, against #48,023 for "muso". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "mesmo" vs "muso" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mesmo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,129 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mesmo" and "muso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mist vs muso". 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 #17,129 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