maa vs mas, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank: #25
“mas” frequency rank: 48550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	maa	mas
Definition	chão, solo	conjunção adversativa, indica clara oposição entre ideias

Letter map: maa vs mas

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and mas apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. maa (CVV) and mas (CVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch

maa

3 ch

mas

Grammar separator: maa vs mas

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maa is anoun and masaconjunction. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “maa” becomes s in “mas”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. mas is at rank #25, tagged as aconj, pronounced /ˈmɐʃ/.

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 48550, this pair ranks #16,614 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs mas

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "mas": s.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maa" and "mas" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maa" is a noun and "mas" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

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

"mas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25 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.

What to do next

Pair "maa" vs "mas" 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 "mas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #16,614 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"maa" and "mas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #16,614 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.