mustvsmutoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#17,586
“must” frequency rank
#43,549
“muto” frequency rank
61135
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature must muto
Definition algo necessário, geralmente por estar na moda, por ser muito popular ou básico mudar algo de sítio, remover.

Letter map: must vs muto

Shared letters muted; letters that set must and muto apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. must (CVCC) and muto (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
must
4 ch
muto

Grammar separator: must vs muto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: must is anoun and mutoaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61135, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

must is recorded at frequency rank #17,586, classified as anoun. 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 61135, this pair ranks #7,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of must vs muto

Shared letters: mtu. Private to "must": s. Private to "muto": o.

"must" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "muto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • must ← mmust · msut · musst · mustt · muts · umst
  • muto ← mmuto · mtuo · muot · mutto · umto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "must" and "muto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "must" is a noun and "muto" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "must" or "muto"?
"must" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,586 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

You've compared "must" and "muto". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "must" 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 #7,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "must" 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 #7,290 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