maavsMacauTell them apart

Which to use

“maa” and “Macau” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#7,178
“Macau” frequency rank
55703
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa Macau
Definition chão, solo região administrativa especial da China, administrada por Portugal até 1999, onde o português é uma das línguas oficiais

Letter map: maa vs Macau

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and Macau apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. maa runs 3 letters (CVV) against Macau's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
maa
5 ch
Macau

Spelling & dictionary notes on maa vs Macau

maa and Macau are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55703, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. Macau is at rank #7,178, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ma.ˈkaw/.

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 55703, this pair ranks #10,451 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs Macau

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "Macau": cu.

"maa" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "Macau" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Macau ← amcau · maacu · maccau · macua · mcaau · mmacau

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maa" for "Macau" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "maa" vs "Macau" - which ranks higher?
"Macau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,178 in our Portuguese list, against #48,525 for "maa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Macau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,451 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "Macau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". 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 #10,451 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list