meuvsmuiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: meu is a pronoun, mui is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meu” is a pronoun and “mui” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46
“meu” frequency rank
#23,741
“mui” frequency rank
23787
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meu mui
Definition de posse da primeira pessoa do singular (eu); pertencente a mim em alto grau

Where the eye mixes meu and mui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. meu and mui follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
meu
3 ch
mui

Why the eye confuses meu with mui

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meu is /ˈmew/ while mui is /ˈmũj/. 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 (pronoun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23787, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meu is recorded at frequency rank #46, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈmew/. mui is at rank #23,741, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈmũj/.

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 23787, this pair ranks #45,963 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of meu vs mui

Shared letters: mu. Private to "meu": e. Private to "mui": i.

"meu" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "mui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "meu" and "mui" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meu" is a pronoun and "mui" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "meu" or "mui"?
"meu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46 in our Portuguese list, against #23,741 for "mui". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "meu" and "mui" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,963 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meu" and "mui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #45,963 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