maniavsmansãoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#10,393
“mania” frequency rank
#6,672
“mansão” frequency rank
17065
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mania mansão
Definition espécie de loucura com tendências para a excitação morada

Where the eye mixes mania and mansão

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. mania runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against mansão's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
mania
6 ch
mansão

Visual trap between mania and mansão

A purely visual mix-up. mania (/mɐ.ˈni.ɐ/) and mansão (/mɐ̃.ˈsɐ̃w̃/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17065, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mania is recorded at frequency rank #10,393, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɐ.ˈni.ɐ/. mansão is at rank #6,672, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mɐ̃.ˈsɐ̃w̃/.

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 17065, this pair ranks #54,275 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mania vs mansão

Shared letters: amn. Private to "mania": i. Private to "mansão": osã.

"mania" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "mansão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mania ← amnia · maina · manai · mannia · mmania · mnaia

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mania" and "mansão" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/mɐ.ˈni.ɐ/ versus /mɐ̃.ˈsɐ̃w̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "mania" or "mansão" show up more?
"mansão" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,672 in our Portuguese list, against #10,393 for "mania". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "mania" and "mansão" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mania" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mansão" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,275 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mania" and "mansão" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mania". 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 #54,275 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