mané vs mão, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#16,814
“mané” frequency rank: #451
“mão” frequency rank: 17265
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	mané	mão
Definition	pessoa boba, tolo	extremidade do membro anterior dos primatas, capaz de manipular objetos; parte do corpo semelhante ou análoga em outros animais

Letter map: mané vs mão

Shared letters muted; letters that set mané and mão apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. mané runs 4 letters (CVCV) against mão's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch

mané

3 ch

mão

Corpus notes: mané and mão

mané and mão 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 17265, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mané is recorded at frequency rank #16,814, classified as anoun. mão is at rank #451, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mãw/.

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 17265, this pair ranks #54,028 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mané vs mão

Shared letters: m. Private to "mané": ané. Private to "mão": oã.

"mané" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mão" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mané" and "mão" be used interchangeably?

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.

Which is more common, "mané" or "mão"?

"mão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #451 in our Portuguese list, against #16,814 for "mané". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "mané" vs "mão" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "mané" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "mão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #54,028 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"mané" and "mão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mané". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #54,028 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.