mimadavsmímicaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#22,725
“mimada” frequency rank
#44,989
“mímica” frequency rank
67714
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mimada mímica
Definition carícia, afago, mimo arte de exprimir o pensamento por meio de gestos

Where the eye mixes mimada and mímica

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. mimada and mímica follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
mimada
6 ch
mímica

Why the eye confuses mimada with mímica

A purely visual mix-up. mimada (/mi.'ma.dɐ/) and mímica (/ˈmi.mi.kɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67714, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mimada is recorded at frequency rank #22,725, classified as anoun, pronounced /mi.'ma.dɐ/. mímica is at rank #44,989, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmi.mi.kɐ/.

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 67714, this pair ranks #4,529 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mimada vs mímica

Shared letters: aim. Private to "mimada": d. Private to "mímica": cí.

"mimada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "mímica" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mimada ← immada · miamda · mimaad · mimadda · mimdaa · mimmada · mmiada · mmimada

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mimada" for "mímica" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/mi.'ma.dɐ/ versus /ˈmi.mi.kɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mimada" or "mímica" show up more?
"mimada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,725 in our Portuguese list, against #44,989 for "mímica". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mimada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mímica" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,529 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mimada" and "mímica" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mica vs mímica". 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 #4,529 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