mornovsmourãoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#29,833
“morno” frequency rank
#15,627
“mourão” frequency rank
45460
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature morno mourão
Definition pouco quente muito morena ou moreno, muito mouro

Where the eye mixes morno and mourão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. morno runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mourão's 6 (CVVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
morno
6 ch
mourão

Visual trap between morno and mourão

A purely visual mix-up. morno (/ˈmoɾ.nu/) and mourão (/mou.'ɾaŋ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45460, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

morno is recorded at frequency rank #29,833, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈmoɾ.nu/. mourão is at rank #15,627, tagged as anadj, pronounced /mou.'ɾaŋ/.

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 45460, this pair ranks #19,939 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of morno vs mourão

Shared letters: mor. Private to "morno": n. Private to "mourão": uã.

"morno" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mourão" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • morno ← mmorno · monro · mornno · moron · morrno · mrono · omrno

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "morno" for "mourão" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmoɾ.nu/ versus /mou.'ɾaŋ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "morno" vs "mourão" - which ranks higher?
"mourão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,627 in our Portuguese list, against #29,833 for "morno". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "morno" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mourão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,939 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "morno" and "mourão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mogno vs morno". 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 #19,939 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