micavsminarWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mica is a noun, minar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mica” is a noun and “minar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,689
“mica” frequency rank
#26,813
“minar” frequency rank
59502
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mica minar
Definition mineral do grupo de silicatos monoclínicos escavar para extrair da terra metais, líquidos, etc

Letter map: mica vs minar

Shared letters muted; letters that set mica and minar apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mica runs 4 letters (CVCV) against minar's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
mica
5 ch
minar

Part-of-speech tell for mica / minar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mica is anoun and minaraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59502, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mica is recorded at frequency rank #32,689, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmi.kɐ/. minar is at rank #26,813, tagged as averb.

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 59502, this pair ranks #8,153 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mica vs minar

Shared letters: aim. Private to "mica": c. Private to "minar": nr.

"mica" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "minar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mica ← imca · mcia · miac · micca · mmica
  • minar ← imnar · mianr · minarr · minnar · minra · mminar · mniar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mica" for "minar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mica" is a noun and "minar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mica" or "minar"?
"minar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,813 in our Portuguese list, against #32,689 for "mica". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "mica" vs "minar" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mica" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "minar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,153 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mica" and "minar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mica vs mirra". 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 #8,153 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