movsmofoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mo is a pronoun, mofo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mo” is a pronoun and “mofo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,745
“mo” frequency rank
#29,442
“mofo” frequency rank
34187
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mo mofo
Definition combinação de me (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono) e o (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono, pronome demonstrativo masculino ou pronome demonstrativo neutro) espécie de fungo de tamanho pequeno que coloniza a matéria orgânica rica em nutrientes, têm um micélio filamentoso e enramado que é a forma macroscópica visível como borra ou pelo

Where the eye mixes mo and mofo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
mo
4 ch
mofo

Visual trap between mo and mofo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mo is /mo/ while mofo is /ˈmo.fu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mo” sits inside “mofo”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34187, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mo is recorded at frequency rank #4,745, classified as apron, pronounced /mo/. mofo is at rank #29,442, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmo.fu/.

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 34187, this pair ranks #33,148 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mo vs mofo

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mo": -. Private to "mofo": f.

"mo" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "mofo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mofomfoo · mmofo · moffo · moof · omfo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mo" for "mofo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mo" is a pronoun and "mofo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mo" vs "mofo" - which ranks higher?
"mo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,745 in our Portuguese list, against #29,442 for "mofo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mofo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #33,148 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mo" and "mofo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mofo 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 #33,148 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