movsmotoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#4,745
“mo” frequency rank
#3,422
“moto” frequency rank
8167
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mo moto
Definition combinação de me (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono) e o (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono, pronome demonstrativo masculino ou pronome demonstrativo neutro) ato ou efeito de mover; movimento

Where the eye mixes mo and moto

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

2 ch
mo
4 ch
moto

Why the eye confuses mo with moto

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mo is /mo/ while moto is /ˈmɔ.tu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “mo” sits inside “moto”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8167, 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/. moto is at rank #3,422, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɔ.tu/.

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 8167, this pair ranks #65,709 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mo vs moto

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mo": -. Private to "moto": t.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • motommoto · moot · motto · mtoo · omto

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mo" and "moto" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mo" is a pronoun and "moto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mo" vs "moto" - which ranks higher?
"moto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,422 in our Portuguese list, against #4,745 for "mo". 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 "moto" 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 "moto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,709 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mo" and "moto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mo". 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 #65,709 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