manévsmateiTell them apart

Quick tell: mané is a noun, matei is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mané” is a noun and “matei” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,814
“mané” frequency rank
#9,532
“matei” frequency rank
26346
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mané matei
Definition pessoa boba, tolo primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do modo indicativo do verbo matar

Letter map: mané vs matei

Shared letters muted; letters that set mané and matei apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. mané runs 4 letters (CVCV) against matei's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
mané
5 ch
matei

Role in the sentence - mané and matei

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mané is anoun and mateiaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26346, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mané is recorded at frequency rank #16,814, classified as anoun. matei is at rank #9,532, tagged as averb, pronounced /ma.ˈteɪ/.

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 26346, this pair ranks #42,839 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mané vs matei

Shared letters: am. Private to "mané": né. Private to "matei": eit.

"mané" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "matei" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • matei ← amtei · maeti · matie · mattei · mmatei · mtaei

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mané" and "matei" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mané" is a noun and "matei" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mané" or "matei"?
"matei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,532 in our Portuguese list, against #16,814 for "mané". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "mané" vs "matei" 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 "matei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,839 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mané" and "matei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mané". 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 #42,839 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