magrovsmalhoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: magro is a adjective, malho is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,924
“magro” frequency rank
#44,473
“malho” frequency rank
55397
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magro malho
Definition não gordo, não cheio de carnes ferramenta com cabo de madeira e na extremidade uma peça de metal com uma superfície lisa, usada para bater pregos; martelo

Letter map: magro vs malho

Shared letters muted; letters that set magro and malho apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. magro and malho follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
magro
5 ch
malho

Role in the sentence - magro and malho

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: magro is anadjective and malhoanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55397, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

magro is recorded at frequency rank #10,924, classified as anadj. malho is at rank #44,473, tagged as anoun.

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 55397, this pair ranks #10,613 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of magro vs malho

Shared letters: amo. Private to "magro": gr. Private to "malho": hl.

"magro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "malho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magro ← amgro · maggro · magor · magrro · margo · mgaro · mmagro
  • malho ← amlho · mahlo · malhho · mallho · maloh · mlaho · mmalho

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "magro" and "malho" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "magro" is an adjective and "malho" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "magro" or "malho" show up more?
"magro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,924 in our Portuguese list, against #44,473 for "malho". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "magro" and "malho". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "magro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "malho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,613 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magro" and "malho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malho vs malva". 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 #10,613 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