mahvsmiauWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#29,420
“mah” frequency rank
#34,812
“miau” frequency rank
64232
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mah miau
Definition usada para chamar ou deter alguém, ou para chamar sua atenção minhau

Letter map: mah vs miau

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

3 ch
mah
4 ch
miau

Spelling & dictionary notes on mah vs miau

mah and miau are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64232, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mah is recorded at frequency rank #29,420, classified as anintj. miau is at rank #34,812, tagged as anintj, pronounced /miˈaʊ̯/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 64232, this pair ranks #5,863 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mah vs miau

Shared letters: am. Private to "mah": h. Private to "miau": iu.

"mah" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "miau" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • miau ← imau · maiu · miua · mmiau

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mah" for "miau" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "mah" vs "miau" - which ranks higher?
"mah" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,420 in our Portuguese list, against #34,812 for "miau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "miau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,863 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mah" and "miau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs miau". 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 #5,863 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