maciçovsmaioWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: maciço is a adjective, maio is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maciço” is an adjective and “maio” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,489
“maciço” frequency rank
#523
“maio” frequency rank
20012
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maciço maio
Definition compacto; sem vazios internos quinto mês do ano civil, formado por 31 dias

Letter map: maciço vs maio

Shared letters muted; letters that set maciço and maio apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
maciço
4 ch
maio

Role in the sentence - maciço and maio

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maciço is anadjective and maioanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20012, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maciço is recorded at frequency rank #19,489, classified as anadj. maio is at rank #523, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmaj.ju/.

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 20012, this pair ranks #50,605 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maciço vs maio

Shared letters: aimo. Private to "maciço": . Private to "maio": -.

"maciço" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "maio" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maioamio · maoi · miao · mmaio

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maciço" for "maio" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maciço" is an adjective and "maio" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maciço" vs "maio" - which ranks higher?
"maio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #523 in our Portuguese list, against #19,489 for "maciço". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "maciço" and "maio".

  • Full dictionary entry for "maciço" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,605 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maciço" and "maio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "machão vs maciço". 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 #50,605 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