madrevsmapleTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,219
“madre” frequency rank
#33,933
“maple” frequency rank
43152
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature madre maple
Definition mãe ácer

Where the eye mixes madre and maple

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
madre
5 ch
maple

Look-alike desk: madre vs maple

A purely visual mix-up. madre (/ˈma.dɾɨ/) and maple (/meɪpəl/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43152, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

madre is recorded at frequency rank #9,219, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈma.dɾɨ/. maple is at rank #33,933, tagged as anoun, pronounced /meɪpəl/.

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 43152, this pair ranks #22,521 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of madre vs maple

Shared letters: aem. Private to "madre": dr. Private to "maple": lp.

"madre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "maple" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • madreamdre · maddre · mader · madrre · marde · mdare · mmadre
  • mapleample · malpe · mapel · maplle · mapple · mmaple · mpale

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "madre" and "maple" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈma.dɾɨ/ versus /meɪpəl/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "madre" or "maple"?
"madre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,219 in our Portuguese list, against #33,933 for "maple". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "madre" and "maple" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "madre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maple" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,521 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "madre" and "maple" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malo vs maple". 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 #22,521 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