morsavsmortoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: morsa is a noun, morto is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#41,617
“morsa” frequency rank
#1,096
“morto” frequency rank
42713
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature morsa morto
Definition mamífero da espécie Odobenus rosmarus que deixou de viver

Letter map: morsa vs morto

Shared letters muted; letters that set morsa and morto apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. morsa and morto follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
morsa
5 ch
morto

Role in the sentence - morsa and morto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: morsa is anoun and mortoanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42713, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

morsa is recorded at frequency rank #41,617, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɔɹ.sa/. morto is at rank #1,096, 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 42713, this pair ranks #23,026 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of morsa vs morto

Shared letters: mor. Private to "morsa": as. Private to "morto": t.

"morsa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "morto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • morsa ← mmorsa · moras · morrsa · morssa · mosra · mrosa · omrsa
  • morto ← mmorto · morot · morrto · mortto · motro · mroto · omrto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "morsa" and "morto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "morsa" is a noun and "morto" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "morsa" or "morto" show up more?
"morto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,096 in our Portuguese list, against #41,617 for "morsa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "morsa" vs "morto" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "morsa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "morto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,026 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "morsa" and "morto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mirra vs morsa". 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 #23,026 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