maçovsmagroWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maço is a noun, magro is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#25,742
“maço” frequency rank
#10,924
“magro” frequency rank
36666
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maço magro
Definition instrumento de madeira encabado para uso de carpinteiros, escultores, etc. não gordo, não cheio de carnes

Letter map: maço vs magro

Shared letters muted; letters that set maço and magro apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. maço runs 4 letters (CVCV) against magro's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
maço
5 ch
magro

Part-of-speech tell for maço / magro

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maço is anoun and magroanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36666, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maço is recorded at frequency rank #25,742, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈma.su/. magro is at rank #10,924, tagged as anadj.

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 36666, this pair ranks #30,088 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maço vs magro

Shared letters: amo. Private to "maço": ç. Private to "magro": gr.

"maço" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "magro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magro ← amgro · maggro · magor · magrro · margo · mgaro · mmagro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maço" for "magro" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maço" is a noun and "magro" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maço" vs "magro" - which ranks higher?
"magro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,924 in our Portuguese list, against #25,742 for "maço". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "maço" vs "magro" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maço" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "magro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,088 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maço" and "magro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs maço". 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 #30,088 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