manhasvsmanualWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: manhas is a noun, manual is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“manhas” is a noun and “manual” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,982
“manhas” frequency rank
#3,784
“manual” frequency rank
47766
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manhas manual
Definition manhas, costume, hábito, modo que diz respeito à mão

Letter map: manhas vs manual

Shared letters muted; letters that set manhas and manual apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. manhas (CVCCVC) and manual (CVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
manhas
6 ch
manual

Part-of-speech tell for manhas / manual

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: manhas is anoun and manualanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47766, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manhas is recorded at frequency rank #43,982, classified as anoun. manual is at rank #3,784, tagged as anadj, pronounced /mɐ.ˈnwaɫ/.

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 47766, this pair ranks #17,466 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of manhas vs manual

Shared letters: amn. Private to "manhas": hs. Private to "manual": lu.

"manhas" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "manual" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manhas ← amnhas · mahnas · manahs · manhass · manhhas · manhsa · mannhas · mmanhas
  • manual ← amnual · manaul · mannual · manuall · manula · maunal · mmanual · mnaual

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manhas" for "manual" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "manhas" is a noun and "manual" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "manhas" or "manual" show up more?
"manual" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,784 in our Portuguese list, against #43,982 for "manhas". 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 "manhas" and "manual".

  • Full dictionary entry for "manhas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "manual" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,466 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manhas" and "manual" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manhas vs manhoso". 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 #17,466 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