modo vs moído, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“modo” is a noun and “moído” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#606
“modo” frequency rank: #40,251
“moído” frequency rank: 40857
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	modo	moído
Definition	maneira, jeito	que se moeu

Letter map: modo vs moído

Shared letters muted; letters that set modo and moído apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch

modo

5 ch

moído

Grammar separator: modo vs moído

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: modo is anoun and moídoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

modo is recorded at frequency rank #606, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɔ.du/. moído is at rank #40,251, tagged as anadj.

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 40857, this pair ranks #25,179 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of modo vs moído

Shared letters: dmo. Private to "modo": -. Private to "moído": í.

"modo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "moído" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

modo ← mdoo · mmodo · moddo · omdo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "modo" for "moído" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "modo" is a noun and "moído" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "modo" or "moído" show up more?

"modo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #606 in our Portuguese list, against #40,251 for "moído". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "modo" and "moído". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "modo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "moído" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #25,179 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"modo" and "moído" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mogno vs moído". 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 #25,179 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.