maavsmamãoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#23,399
“mamão” frequency rank
71924
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa mamão
Definition chão, solo que mama muito

Letter map: maa vs mamão

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and mamão apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. maa runs 3 letters (CVV) against mamão's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
maa
5 ch
mamão

Grammar separator: maa vs mamão

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maa is anoun and mamãoanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71924, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. mamão is at rank #23,399, tagged as anadj.

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 71924, this pair ranks #3,208 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs mamão

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "mamão": oã.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maa" and "mamão" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maa" is a noun and "mamão" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maa" vs "mamão" - which ranks higher?
"mamão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,399 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.

Useful next steps

You've compared "maa" and "mamão". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mamão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,208 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "mamão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #3,208 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