macacavsmatavaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: macaca is a noun, matava is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“macaca” is a noun and “matava” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,268
“macaca” frequency rank
#20,939
“matava” frequency rank
49207
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature macaca matava
Definition jogo infantil sobre uma figura geométrica riscada no chão, com quadrinhos sobre os que se avança tirando uma pedra primeira e terceira pessoa do singular do pretérito imperfeito do modo indicativo do verbo matar

Letter map: macaca vs matava

Shared letters muted; letters that set macaca and matava apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
macaca
6 ch
matava

Part-of-speech tell for macaca / matava

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: macaca is anoun and matavaaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49207, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

macaca is recorded at frequency rank #28,268, classified as anoun. matava is at rank #20,939, tagged as averb, pronounced /ma.ˈta.vɐ/.

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 49207, this pair ranks #15,853 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of macaca vs matava

Shared letters: am. Private to "macaca": c. Private to "matava": tv.

"macaca" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "matava" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • macacaamcaca · maacca · macaac · macacca · maccaa · maccaca · mcaaca · mmacaca
  • matavaamtava · maatva · mataav · matavva · mattava · matvaa · mmatava · mtaava

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "macaca" and "matava" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "macaca" is a noun and "matava" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "macaca" or "matava"?
"matava" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,939 in our Portuguese list, against #28,268 for "macaca". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "macaca" and "matava". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "macaca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "matava" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,853 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "macaca" and "matava" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "macaca vs marajá". 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 #15,853 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