manténvsmantosWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#23,856
“mantén” frequency rank
#46,658
“mantos” frequency rank
70514
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mantén mantos
Definition Segunda persona del singular (tú) del imperativo afirmativo de mantener. Forma del plural de manto.

Where the eye mixes mantén and mantos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. mantén and mantos follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
mantén
6 ch
mantos

Look-alike desk: mantén vs mantos

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mantén is [mãn̪ˈt̪ẽn] while mantos is [ˈmãn̪t̪os]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70514, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mantén is recorded at frequency rank #23,856, classified as averb, pronounced [mãn̪ˈt̪ẽn]. mantos is at rank #46,658, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmãn̪t̪os].

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 70514, this pair ranks #29,518 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mantén vs mantos

Shared letters: amnt. Private to "mantén": é. Private to "mantos": os.

"mantén" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mantos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mantos ← amntos · manntos · manots · mantoss · mantso · manttos · matnos · mmantos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mantén" and "mantos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mantén" is a verb and "mantos" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mantén" or "mantos"?
"mantén" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,856 in our Spanish list, against #46,658 for "mantos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "mantén" and "mantos" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mantén" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mantos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,518 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mantén" and "mantos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mantis vs mantos". 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 #29,518 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list