maisvsmaloWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mais is a adverb, malo is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mais” is an adverb and “malo” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23
“mais” frequency rank
#41,118
“malo” frequency rank
41141
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mais malo
Definition avançadamente (designa aumento) mau, malévolo:

Letter map: mais vs malo

Shared letters muted; letters that set mais and malo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
mais
4 ch
malo

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mais is anadverb and maloanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41141, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mais is recorded at frequency rank #23, classified as anadv, pronounced /mäjʃ/. 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 41141, this pair ranks #24,849 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mais vs malo

Shared letters: am. Private to "mais": is. Private to "malo": lo.

"mais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "malo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maisamis · maiss · masi · mias · mmais
  • maloamlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mais" and "malo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mais" is an adverb and "malo" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mais" or "malo"?
"mais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23 in our Portuguese list, against #41,118 for "malo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list