masovsmazoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maso is a adverb, mazo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maso” is an adverb and “mazo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,567
“maso” frequency rank
#15,157
“mazo” frequency rank
45724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maso mazo
Definition Más o menos. Martillo de gran tamaño y cabeza roma.

Same sound, different letters: maso vs mazo

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. maso and mazo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
maso
4 ch
mazo

Homophone desk: maso vs mazo

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: maso and mazo carry the same recorded pronunciation, [ˈmaso]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadverb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - s in “maso” becomes z in “mazo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maso is recorded at frequency rank #30,567, classified as anadv, pronounced [ˈmaso]. mazo is at rank #15,157, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmaso].

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 45724, this pair ranks #129,784 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maso vs mazo

Shared letters: amo. Private to "maso": s. Private to "mazo": z.

"maso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mazo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • masomasso · mmaso · msao
  • mazoamzo · maoz · mazzo · mmazo · mzao

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maso" for "mazo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maso" is an adverb and "mazo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "maso" or "mazo"?
"mazo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,157 in our Spanish list, against #30,567 for "maso". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"maso" and "mazo" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maso" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mazo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #129,784 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maso" and "mazo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maso vs math". 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 #129,784 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