mal vs me, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“mal” is an adverb and “me” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#319
“mal” frequency rank: #28
“me” frequency rank: 347
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	mal	me
Definition	de forma pouco satisfatória	pronome pessoal oblíquo átono da primeira pessoa do singular, usado em complementos direto do verbo:

Letter map: mal vs me

Shared letters muted; letters that set mal and me apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

mal

2 ch

Role in the sentence - mal and me

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mal is anadverb and meapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 347, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mal is recorded at frequency rank #319, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈmaw/. me is at rank #28, tagged as apron.

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 347, this pair ranks #75,289 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mal vs me

Shared letters: m. Private to "mal": al. Private to "me": e.

"mal" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "me" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mal" and "me" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mal" is an adverb and "me" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "mal" or "me"?

"me" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28 in our Portuguese list, against #319 for "mal". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "mal" vs "me" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "mal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "me" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #75,289 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"mal" and "me" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mal". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #75,289 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.