mantervsmasterWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: manter is a verb, master is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“manter” is a verb and “master” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#650
“manter” frequency rank
#6,446
“master” frequency rank
7096
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manter master
Definition sustentar principal

Letter map: manter vs master

Shared letters muted; letters that set manter and master apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

6 ch
manter
6 ch
master

Part-of-speech tell for manter / master

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: manter is averb and masteranadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “manter” becomes s in “master”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7096, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manter is recorded at frequency rank #650, classified as averb, pronounced /mɐ̃.ˈteɾ/. master is at rank #6,446, tagged as anadj.

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 7096, this pair ranks #67,141 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of manter vs master

Shared letters: aemrt. Private to "manter": n. Private to "master": s.

"manter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "master" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manteramnter · manetr · mannter · manterr · mantre · mantter · matner · mmanter
  • masteramster · masetr · masster · masterr · mastre · mastter · matser · mmaster

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manter" for "master" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "manter" is a verb and "master" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "manter" vs "master" - which ranks higher?
"manter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #650 in our Portuguese list, against #6,446 for "master". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "manter" and "master".

  • Full dictionary entry for "manter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "master" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #67,141 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manter" and "master" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "master vs Messer". 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 #67,141 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