maavsmanConfusable pair

Quick tell: maa is a noun, man is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#2,736
“man” frequency rank
51261
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa man
Definition chão, solo se (atua como partícula de indeterminação do sujeito):

Letter map: maa vs man

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

3 ch
maa
3 ch
man

Grammar separator: maa vs man

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maa is anoun and manapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “maa” becomes n in “man”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51261, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. man is at rank #2,736, tagged as apron.

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 51261, this pair ranks #13,747 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs man

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "man": n.

"maa" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "man" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maa" and "man" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maa" is a noun and "man" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "maa" or "man" show up more?
"man" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,736 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.

After this comparison

Pair "maa" vs "man" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "man" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,747 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "man" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #13,747 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