maçã vs mão, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#7,309
“maçã” frequency rank: #451
“mão” frequency rank: 7760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	maçã	mão
Definition	o fruto comestível da macieira	extremidade do membro anterior dos primatas, capaz de manipular objetos; parte do corpo semelhante ou análoga em outros animais

Where the eye mixes maçã and mão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch

maçã

3 ch

mão

Look-alike desk: maçã vs mão

A purely visual mix-up. maçã (/mɐ.ˈsɐ̃/) and mão (/mãw/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maçã is recorded at frequency rank #7,309, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɐ.ˈsɐ̃/. mão is at rank #451, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mãw/.

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 7760, this pair ranks #66,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maçã vs mão

Shared letters: mã. Private to "maçã": aç. Private to "mão": o.

"maçã" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mão" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maçã" for "mão" ever safe?

No. They are said differently (/mɐ.ˈsɐ̃/ versus /mãw/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "maçã" or "mão" show up more?

"mão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #451 in our Portuguese list, against #7,309 for "maçã". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "maçã" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "mão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #66,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"maçã" and "mão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs maçã". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #66,290 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.