maavsmêsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#444
“mês” frequency rank
48969
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa mês
Definition chão, solo cada uma das doze partes em que se divide o ano

Letter map: maa vs mês

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and mês apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
maa
3 ch
mês

Pair insight - maa / mês

maa and mês 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48969, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. mês is at rank #444, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeʃ/.

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 48969, this pair ranks #16,135 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs mês

Shared letters: m. Private to "maa": a. Private to "mês": .

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maa" for "mês" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "maa" vs "mês" - which ranks higher?
"mês" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #444 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mês" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,135 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "mês" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #16,135 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