magrovsmaloTell them apart

Which to use

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

#10,924
“magro” frequency rank
#41,118
“malo” frequency rank
52042
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magro malo
Definition não gordo, não cheio de carnes mau, malévolo:

Letter map: magro vs malo

Shared letters muted; letters that set magro and malo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. magro runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against malo's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
magro
4 ch
malo

Spelling & dictionary notes on magro vs malo

magro and malo are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52042, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

magro is recorded at frequency rank #10,924, classified as anadj. 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 52042, this pair ranks #13,091 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of magro vs malo

Shared letters: amo. Private to "magro": gr. Private to "malo": l.

"magro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "malo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magro ← amgro · maggro · magor · magrro · margo · mgaro · mmagro
  • malo ← amlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "magro" and "malo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "magro" or "malo"?
"magro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,924 in our Portuguese list, against #41,118 for "malo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "magro" and "malo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "magro" 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 #13,091 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magro" 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 #13,091 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