mozarela

• muçarela (Brazil)
  • mussarela (proscribed)
• mozzarella (unadapted form)

Borrowed from Italian mozzarella.

• Rhymes: -ɛlɐ
• Hyphenation: mo‧za‧re‧la

mozarela f (countable and uncountable, plural mozarelas)

1. (chiefly Portugal) mozzarella (soft Italian cheese)

• The form muçarela is the most common in Brazil, while mozarela is mostly restricted to Portugal.
• muçarela is prescriptively spelled with a ⟨ç⟩, as that is the usual representation of the sound /s/ in borrowings from foreign languages. The spelling mussarela is overwhelmingly more common than muçarela and included in certain dictionaries,^[1][2] but it is generally considered incorrect, as it is not listed in the Brazilian Academy of Letters’ Orthographic Vocabulary. Commentators, while prescribing the use of muçarela, recognize that mussarela is much more common, and some express insatisfaction regarding its lack of inclusion in the Vocabulary.^[3][4]

• “mozarela”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “mozarela”, in Dicionário infopédia da Lingua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “mozarela”, in Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 2001–2025