marsvsmêsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,305
“mars” frequency rank
#444
“mês” frequency rank
11749
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mars mês
Definition março cada uma das doze partes em que se divide o ano

Where the eye mixes mars and mês

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mars
3 ch
mês

Why the eye confuses mars with mês

A purely visual mix-up. mars (/maʁs/) and mês (/ˈmeʃ/) 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 11749, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mars is recorded at frequency rank #11,305, classified as anoun, pronounced /maʁs/. mês is at rank #444, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmeʃ/.

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 11749, this pair ranks #61,040 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mars vs mês

Shared letters: ms. Private to "mars": ar. Private to "mês": ê.

"mars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mês" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marsamrs · marrs · marss · masr · mmars · mras

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mars" and "mês" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/maʁs/ versus /ˈmeʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mars" or "mês"?
"mês" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #444 in our Portuguese list, against #11,305 for "mars". 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 "mars" and "mês" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mês" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,040 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mars" and "mês" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mars". 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 #61,040 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