maracasvsmarinasTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#46,048
“maracas” frequency rank
#12,868
“marinas” frequency rank
58916
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maracas marinas
Definition Forma del plural de maraca. Forma del femenino plural de marino.

Where the eye mixes maracas and marinas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. maracas and marinas follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
maracas
7 ch
marinas

Why the eye confuses maracas with marinas

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: maracas is [maˈɾakas] while marinas is [maˈɾinas]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58916, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maracas is recorded at frequency rank #46,048, classified as anoun, pronounced [maˈɾakas]. marinas is at rank #12,868, tagged as anadj, pronounced [maˈɾinas].

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 58916, this pair ranks #64,618 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maracas vs marinas

Shared letters: amrs. Private to "maracas": c. Private to "marinas": in.

"maracas" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "marinas" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maracasamracas · maarcas · maraacs · maracass · maraccas · maracsa · marcaas · marracas
  • marinasamrinas · mairnas · marians · marinass · marinnas · marinsa · marnias · marrinas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maracas" and "marinas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maracas" is a noun and "marinas" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "maracas" or "marinas"?
"marinas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,868 in our Spanish list, against #46,048 for "maracas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maracas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marinas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,618 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maracas" and "marinas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maracas vs mirabas". 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 #64,618 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