mahvsmamãWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mah is a intj, mamã is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mah” is an intj and “mamã” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,420
“mah” frequency rank
#29,037
“mamã” frequency rank
58457
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mah mamã
Definition usada para chamar ou deter alguém, ou para chamar sua atenção mãe

Letter map: mah vs mamã

Shared letters muted; letters that set mah and mamã apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. mah runs 3 letters (CVC) against mamã's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
mah
4 ch
mamã

Part-of-speech tell for mah / mamã

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mah is anintj and mamãanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58457, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mah is recorded at frequency rank #29,420, classified as anintj. mamã is at rank #29,037, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɜˈmɜ̃/.

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 58457, this pair ranks #8,727 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mah vs mamã

Shared letters: am. Private to "mah": h. Private to "mamã": ã.

"mah" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mamã" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mah" and "mamã" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mah" is an intj and "mamã" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mah" or "mamã" show up more?
"mamã" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,037 in our Portuguese list, against #29,420 for "mah". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mah" and "mamã".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mamã" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,727 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mah" and "mamã" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mah". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #8,727 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