motivadovsmotivoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#12,495
“motivado” frequency rank
#808
“motivo” frequency rank
13303
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature motivado motivo
Definition diz-se de quem possui motivação, interesse razão, causa

Letter map: motivado vs motivo

Shared letters muted; letters that set motivado and motivo apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. motivado runs 8 letters (CVCVCVCV) against motivo's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
motivado
6 ch
motivo

Part-of-speech tell for motivado / motivo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: motivado is anadjective and motivoanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

motivado is recorded at frequency rank #12,495, classified as anadj. motivo is at rank #808, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mu.ˈti.vu/.

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 13303, this pair ranks #59,092 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of motivado vs motivo

Shared letters: imotv. Private to "motivado": ad. Private to "motivo": -.

"motivado" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV  ·  "motivo" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • motivadommotivado · moitvado · motiavdo · motivaddo · motivaod · motivdao · motivvado · mottivado
  • motivommotivo · moitvo · motiov · motivvo · mottivo · motvio · mtoivo · omtivo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "motivado" for "motivo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "motivado" is an adjective and "motivo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "motivado" or "motivo"?
"motivo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #808 in our Portuguese list, against #12,495 for "motivado". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "motivado" and "motivo". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "motivado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "motivo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,092 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "motivado" and "motivo" 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 #59,092 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