maavsmeuWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#46
“meu” frequency rank
48571
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa meu
Definition chão, solo de posse da primeira pessoa do singular (eu); pertencente a mim

Letter map: maa vs meu

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and meu apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. maa and meu follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
maa
3 ch
meu

Grammar separator: maa vs meu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maa is anoun and meuapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48571, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. meu is at rank #46, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈmew/.

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 48571, this pair ranks #16,600 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs meu

Shared letters: m. Private to "maa": a. Private to "meu": eu.

"maa" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "meu" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "maa" and "meu" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maa" is a noun and "meu" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "maa" or "meu"?
"meu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "maa" and "meu".

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,600 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "meu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #16,600 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