ma vs maa, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ma” is a contraction and “maa” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,420
“ma” frequency rank: #48,525
“maa” frequency rank: 51945
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ma	maa
Definition	contração do pronome pessoal do caso oblíquo me e a	chão, solo

Letter map: ma vs maa

Shared letters muted; letters that set ma and maa apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

maa

Role in the sentence - ma and maa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ma is acontraction and maaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ma” sits inside “maa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51945, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ma is recorded at frequency rank #3,420, classified as acontraction, pronounced /mɐ/. maa is at rank #48,525, tagged as anoun.

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 51945, this pair ranks #13,168 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ma vs maa

Shared letters: am. Private to "ma": -. Private to "maa": -.

"ma" · 2 letters · shape CV · "maa" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ma" and "maa" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ma" is a contraction and "maa" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "ma" vs "maa" - which ranks higher?

"ma" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,420 in our Portuguese list, against #48,525 for "maa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ma" and "maa".

Full dictionary entry for "ma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "maa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #13,168 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ma" and "maa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #13,168 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.