marchvsMariaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#13,556
“march” frequency rank
#619
“Maria” frequency rank
14175
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature march Maria
Definition marcha prenome feminino muito comum

Where the eye mixes march and Maria

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

5 ch
march
5 ch
Maria

Why the eye confuses march with Maria

A purely visual mix-up. march (/ˈmɑːɹtʃ/) and Maria (/ma.ˈɾi.ɐ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14175, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

march is recorded at frequency rank #13,556, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɑːɹtʃ/. Maria is at rank #619, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ma.ˈɾi.ɐ/.

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 14175, this pair ranks #57,990 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of march vs Maria

Shared letters: amr. Private to "march": ch. Private to "Maria": i.

"march" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "Maria" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marchamrch · macrh · marcch · marchh · marhc · marrch · mmarch · mrach
  • Mariaamria · maira · marai · marria · mmaria · mraia

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "march" for "Maria" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmɑːɹtʃ/ versus /ma.ˈɾi.ɐ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "march" or "Maria"?
"Maria" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #619 in our Portuguese list, against #13,556 for "march". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "march" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Maria" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,990 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "march" and "Maria" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "march vs marzo". 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 #57,990 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