manvsmasConfusable pair

Quick tell: man is a pronoun, mas is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“man” is a pronoun and “mas” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,736
“man” frequency rank
#25
“mas” frequency rank
2761
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature man mas
Definition se (atua como partícula de indeterminação do sujeito): conjunção adversativa, indica clara oposição entre ideias

Letter map: man vs mas

Shared letters muted; letters that set man and mas apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
man
3 ch
mas

Grammar separator: man vs mas

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: man is apronoun and masaconjunction. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “man” becomes s in “mas”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2761, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

man is recorded at frequency rank #2,736, classified as apron. mas is at rank #25, tagged as aconj, pronounced /ˈmɐʃ/.

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 2761, this pair ranks #72,514 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of man vs mas

Shared letters: am. Private to "man": n. Private to "mas": s.

"man" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mas" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "man" for "mas" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "man" is a pronoun and "mas" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "man" or "mas" show up more?
"mas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25 in our Portuguese list, against #2,736 for "man". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "man" and "mas".

  • Full dictionary entry for "man" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,514 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "man" and "mas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs man". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #72,514 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