malhovsmalvaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: malho is a noun, malva is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“malho” is a noun and “malva” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,473
“malho” frequency rank
#44,474
“malva” frequency rank
88947
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malho malva
Definition ferramenta com cabo de madeira e na extremidade uma peça de metal com uma superfície lisa, usada para bater pregos; martelo violeta

Letter map: malho vs malva

Shared letters muted; letters that set malho and malva apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. malho and malva follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
malho
5 ch
malva

Part-of-speech tell for malho / malva

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malho is anoun and malvaanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88947, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malho is recorded at frequency rank #44,473, classified as anoun. malva is at rank #44,474, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈmaɫ.vɐ/.

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 88947, this pair ranks #363 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malho vs malva

Shared letters: alm. Private to "malho": ho. Private to "malva": v.

"malho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "malva" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malho ← amlho · mahlo · malhho · mallho · maloh · mlaho · mmalho
  • malva ← amlva · malav · mallva · malvva · mavla · mlava · mmalva

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "malho" and "malva" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malho" is a noun and "malva" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "malho" or "malva"?
"malho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,473 in our Portuguese list, against #44,474 for "malva". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "malho" and "malva". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malho" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "malva" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #363 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malho" and "malva" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa 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 #363 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