monovsmutoTell them apart

Quick tell: mono is a adjective, muto is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mono” is an adjective and “muto” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,739
“mono” frequency rank
#43,549
“muto” frequency rank
67288
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mono muto
Definition relativo a macaco: «...flor das raças monas.» Castilho. mudar algo de sítio, remover.

Letter map: mono vs muto

Shared letters muted; letters that set mono and muto apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. mono and muto follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
mono
4 ch
muto

Grammar separator: mono vs muto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mono is anadjective and mutoaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67288, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mono is recorded at frequency rank #23,739, classified as anadj. muto is at rank #43,549, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈmuː.toː/.

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 67288, this pair ranks #4,692 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mono vs muto

Shared letters: mo. Private to "mono": n. Private to "muto": tu.

"mono" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "muto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mono ← mmono · mnoo · monno · omno
  • muto ← mmuto · mtuo · muot · mutto · umto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mono" for "muto" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mono" is an adjective and "muto" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mono" or "muto" show up more?
"mono" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,739 in our Portuguese list, against #43,549 for "muto". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mono" and "muto".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mono" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,692 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mono" and "muto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "muso vs muto". 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 #4,692 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