malovsmangoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: malo is a adjective, mango is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#41,118
“malo” frequency rank
#34,799
“mango” frequency rank
75917
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malo mango
Definition mau, malévolo: manga, fruto

Letter map: malo vs mango

Shared letters muted; letters that set malo and mango apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. malo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against mango's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
malo
5 ch
mango

Role in the sentence - malo and mango

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malo is anadjective and mangoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75917, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malo is recorded at frequency rank #41,118, classified as anadj. mango is at rank #34,799, 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 75917, this pair ranks #2,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malo vs mango

Shared letters: amo. Private to "malo": l. Private to "mango": gn.

"malo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mango" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malo ← amlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo
  • mango ← amngo · manggo · manngo · manog · mmango · mnago

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malo" for "mango" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malo" is an adjective and "mango" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "malo" or "mango" show up more?
"mango" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,799 in our Portuguese list, against #41,118 for "malo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "malo" and "mango". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mango" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,200 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malo" and "mango" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maa vs malo". 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 #2,200 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