maçovsmemoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#25,742
“maço” frequency rank
#35,681
“memo” frequency rank
61423
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maço memo
Definition instrumento de madeira encabado para uso de carpinteiros, escultores, etc. mesmo

Letter map: maço vs memo

Shared letters muted; letters that set maço and memo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. maço and memo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
maço
4 ch
memo

Part-of-speech tell for maço / memo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maço is anoun and memoanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61423, 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/. memo is at rank #35,681, tagged as anadv.

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 61423, this pair ranks #7,145 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maço vs memo

Shared letters: mo. Private to "maço": aç. Private to "memo": e.

"maço" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "memo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • memo ← emmo · memmo · meom · mmemo · mmeo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maço" and "memo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maço" is a noun and "memo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "maço" or "memo" show up more?
"maço" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,742 in our Portuguese list, against #35,681 for "memo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "maço" vs "memo" 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 "memo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,145 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maço" and "memo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "memo vs muso". 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 #7,145 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