maavsmalvaConfusable pair

Quick tell: maa is a noun, malva is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maa” is a noun and “malva” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,525
“maa” frequency rank
#44,474
“malva” frequency rank
92999
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maa malva
Definition chão, solo violeta

Letter map: maa vs malva

Shared letters muted; letters that set maa and malva apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
maa
5 ch
malva

Part-of-speech tell for maa / malva

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maa is anoun and malvaanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 92999, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maa is recorded at frequency rank #48,525, classified as anoun. malva is at rank #44,474, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈmaɫ.vɐ/.

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 92999, this pair ranks #145 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maa vs malva

Shared letters: am. Private to "maa": -. Private to "malva": lv.

"maa" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "malva" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malvaamlva · malav · mallva · malvva · mavla · mlava · mmalva

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maa" for "malva" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maa" is a noun and "malva" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maa" vs "malva" - which ranks higher?
"malva" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,474 in our Portuguese list, against #48,525 for "maa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "maa" and "malva". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "malva" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #145 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maa" and "malva" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malo". 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 #145 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