maavsmiauTell them apart

Quick tell: maa is a noun, miau is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#34,812
“miau” frequency rank
83337
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa miau
Definition chão, solo minhau

Letter map: maa vs miau

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and miau apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. maa runs 3 letters (CVV) against miau's 4 (CVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
maa
4 ch
miau

Grammar separator: maa vs miau

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maa is anoun and miauanintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83337, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. miau is at rank #34,812, tagged as anintj, pronounced /miˈaʊ̯/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 83337, this pair ranks #922 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs miau

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "miau": iu.

"maa" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "miau" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • miau ← imau · maiu · miua · mmiau

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maa" and "miau" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maa" is a noun and "miau" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "maa" or "miau"?
"miau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,812 in our Portuguese list, against #48,525 for "maa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "miau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #922 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "miau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malva". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #922 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