motivaçãovsmotivadoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#4,746
“motivação” frequency rank
#12,495
“motivado” frequency rank
17241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature motivação motivado
Definition posse de motivos para se engajar em algum empreendimento diz-se de quem possui motivação, interesse

Letter map: motivação vs motivado

Shared letters muted; letters that set motivação and motivado apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. motivação runs 9 letters (CVCVCVCVV) against motivado's 8 (CVCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
motivação
8 ch
motivado

Role in the sentence - motivação and motivado

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: motivação is anoun and motivadoanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

motivação is recorded at frequency rank #4,746, classified as anoun, pronounced /mu.ti.vɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃/. motivado is at rank #12,495, 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 17241, this pair ranks #54,060 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of motivação vs motivado

Shared letters: aimotv. Private to "motivação": ãç. Private to "motivado": d.

"motivação" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVV  ·  "motivado" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • motivadommotivado · moitvado · motiavdo · motivaddo · motivaod · motivdao · motivvado · mottivado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "motivação" for "motivado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "motivação" is a noun and "motivado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "motivação" or "motivado" show up more?
"motivação" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,746 in our Portuguese list, against #12,495 for "motivado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "motivação" and "motivado".

  • Full dictionary entry for "motivação" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motivado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,060 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "motivação" and "motivado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "motivado vs motivador". 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 #54,060 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