Which to use
“maçã” is a noun and “malo” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,309
- “maçã” frequency rank
- #41,118
- “malo” frequency rank
- 48427
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maçã | malo |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | o fruto comestível da macieira | mau, malévolo: |
Letter map: maçã vs malo
Shared letters muted; letters that set maçã and malo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. maçã and malo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for maçã / malo
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maçã is anoun and maloanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48427, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maçã is recorded at frequency rank #7,309, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɐ.ˈsɐ̃/. malo is at rank #41,118, 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 48427, this pair ranks #16,736 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of maçã vs malo
Shared letters: am. Private to "maçã": ãç. Private to "malo": lo.
"maçã" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "malo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- malo ← amlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "maçã" and "malo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "maçã" or "malo"?
Useful next steps
Pair "maçã" vs "malo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "maçã" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #16,736 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maçã" and "malo" 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 #16,736 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.