malovsmarzoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#41,118
“malo” frequency rank
#43,029
“marzo” frequency rank
84147
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malo marzo
Definition mau, malévolo: março

Letter map: malo vs marzo

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

4 ch
malo
5 ch
marzo

Role in the sentence - malo and marzo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malo is anadjective and marzoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84147, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malo is recorded at frequency rank #41,118, classified as anadj. marzo is at rank #43,029, tagged as anoun, pronounced /'mar.so/.

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 84147, this pair ranks #829 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malo vs marzo

Shared letters: amo. Private to "malo": l. Private to "marzo": rz.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malo ← amlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo
  • marzo ← amrzo · maroz · marrzo · marzzo · mazro · mmarzo · mrazo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "malo" and "marzo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malo" is an adjective and "marzo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "malo" or "marzo" show up more?
"malo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,118 in our Portuguese list, against #43,029 for "marzo". 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 "marzo". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marzo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #829 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malo" and "marzo" 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 #829 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