ma vs meu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#3,420
“ma” frequency rank: #46
“meu” frequency rank: 3466
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ma	meu
Definition	contração do pronome pessoal do caso oblíquo me e a	de posse da primeira pessoa do singular (eu); pertencente a mim

Where the eye mixes ma and meu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

meu

Look-alike desk: ma vs meu

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ma is /mɐ/ while meu is /ˈmew/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3466, 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/. meu is at rank #46, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈmew/.

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 3466, this pair ranks #71,687 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ma vs meu

Shared letters: m. Private to "ma": a. Private to "meu": eu.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ma" and "meu" be used interchangeably?

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

Which is more common, "ma" or "meu"?

"meu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46 in our Portuguese list, against #3,420 for "ma". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

Full dictionary entry for "ma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "meu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #71,687 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ma" and "meu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ma vs maa". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #71,687 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.