mansovsmasWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#22,382
“manso” frequency rank
#25
“mas” frequency rank
22407
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manso mas
Definition pacífico conjunção adversativa, indica clara oposição entre ideias

Where the eye mixes manso and mas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
manso
3 ch
mas

Visual trap between manso and mas

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: manso is /ˈmɐ̃.su/ while mas is /ˈmɐʃ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs conjunction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22407, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manso is recorded at frequency rank #22,382, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈmɐ̃.su/. 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 22407, this pair ranks #47,643 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of manso vs mas

Shared letters: ams. Private to "manso": no. Private to "mas": -.

"manso" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mas" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mansoamnso · mannso · manos · mansso · masno · mmanso · mnaso

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "manso" and "mas" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "manso" is an adjective and "mas" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "manso" or "mas"?
"mas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25 in our Portuguese list, against #22,382 for "manso". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "manso" 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 #47,643 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manso" and "mas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manhoso vs manso". 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 #47,643 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