MaorivsmãosWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#37,001
“Maori” frequency rank
#761
“mãos” frequency rank
37762
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Maori mãos
Definition um dos povos indígenas da Nova Zelândia plural de mão

Where the eye mixes Maori and mãos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Maori runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against mãos's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Maori
4 ch
mãos

Look-alike desk: Maori vs mãos

A purely visual mix-up. Maori (/maˈoːri/ ouvir^(fonte ?)) and mãos (/ˈmɐ̃w̃ʃ/) 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 37762, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Maori is recorded at frequency rank #37,001, classified as anoun, pronounced /maˈoːri/ ouvir^(fonte ?). mãos is at rank #761, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɐ̃w̃ʃ/.

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 37762, this pair ranks #28,812 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Maori vs mãos

Shared letters: mo. Private to "Maori": air. Private to "mãos": sã.

"Maori" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "mãos" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Maori ← amori · maorri · maroi · mmaori · moari

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Maori" and "mãos" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/maˈoːri/ ouvir^(fonte ?) versus /ˈmɐ̃w̃ʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Maori" vs "mãos" - which ranks higher?
"mãos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #761 in our Portuguese list, against #37,001 for "Maori". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Maori" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mãos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,812 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Maori" and "mãos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Maori vs moi". 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 #28,812 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