malhavsmalhoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,925
“malha” frequency rank
#44,473
“malho” frequency rank
55398
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malha malho
Definition estrutura geométrica formada por linhas regulares ou não ferramenta com cabo de madeira e na extremidade uma peça de metal com uma superfície lisa, usada para bater pregos; martelo

Letter map: malha vs malho

Shared letters muted; letters that set malha and malho apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. malha 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
malha
5 ch
malho

Corpus notes: malha and malho

malha and malho 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 a single letter - a in “malha” becomes o in “malho”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55398, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malha is recorded at frequency rank #10,925, classified as anoun. 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 55398, this pair ranks #10,611 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malha vs malho

Shared letters: ahlm. Private to "malha": -. Private to "malho": o.

"malha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "malho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malha ← amlha · mahla · malah · malhha · mallha · mlaha · mmalha
  • malho ← amlho · mahlo · malhho · mallho · maloh · mlaho · mmalho

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malha" for "malho" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - a in “malha” becomes o in “malho”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "malha" vs "malho" - which ranks higher?
"malha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,925 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "malha" and "malho".

  • Full dictionary entry for "malha" 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 #10,611 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malha" 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 #10,611 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