malvsmuralWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mal is a adverb, mural is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#319
“mal” frequency rank
#11,686
“mural” frequency rank
12005
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mal mural
Definition de forma pouco satisfatória obra artística em parede

Letter map: mal vs mural

Shared letters muted; letters that set mal and mural apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
mal
5 ch
mural

Part-of-speech tell for mal / mural

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mal is anadverb and muralanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12005, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mal is recorded at frequency rank #319, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈmaw/. mural is at rank #11,686, 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 12005, this pair ranks #60,706 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mal vs mural

Shared letters: alm. Private to "mal": -. Private to "mural": ru.

"mal" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "mural" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • muralmmural · mrual · muarl · murall · murla · murral · umral

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mal" and "mural" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mal" is an adverb and "mural" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mal" vs "mural" - which ranks higher?
"mal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #319 in our Portuguese list, against #11,686 for "mural". 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 "mural" 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 "mural" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,706 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mal" and "mural" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs mal". 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 #60,706 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