Mai vs mar, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#9,369
“Mai” frequency rank: #828
“mar” frequency rank: 10197
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Mai	mar
Definition	maio	grande quantidade de água salgada que cobre parte do planeta Terra, podendo estar localizada junto ou dentro de continentes

Where the eye mixes Mai and mar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

Mai

3 ch

mar

Look-alike desk: Mai vs mar

A purely visual mix-up. Mai (/maɪ̯/) and mar (/ˈmaɾ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - i in “Mai” becomes r in “mar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10197, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mai is recorded at frequency rank #9,369, classified as anoun, pronounced /maɪ̯/. mar is at rank #828, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmaɾ/.

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 10197, this pair ranks #62,973 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Mai vs mar

Shared letters: am. Private to "Mai": i. Private to "mar": r.

"Mai" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "mar" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Mai" and "mar" be used interchangeably?

No. They are said differently (/maɪ̯/ versus /ˈmaɾ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

Frequency check: "Mai" vs "mar" - which ranks higher?

"mar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #828 in our Portuguese list, against #9,369 for "Mai". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "Mai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "mar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #62,973 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Mai" and "mar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs Mai". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #62,973 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.