maa vs mar, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank: #828
“mar” frequency rank: 49353
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	maa	mar
Definition	chão, solo	grande quantidade de água salgada que cobre parte do planeta Terra, podendo estar localizada junto ou dentro de continentes

Letter map: maa vs mar

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

3 ch

maa

3 ch

mar

Spelling & dictionary notes on maa vs mar

maa and mar 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 a single letter - a in “maa” becomes r in “mar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49353, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. mar is at rank #828, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmaɾ/.

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 49353, this pair ranks #15,676 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs mar

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "mar": r.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maa" for "mar" ever safe?

No. They differ by a single letter - a in “maa” becomes r in “mar”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Which is more common, "maa" or "mar"?

"mar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #828 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.

Useful next steps

Pair "maa" vs "mar" 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 "mar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #15,676 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"maa" and "mar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #15,676 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.