malovsmoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#41,118
“malo” frequency rank
#4,745
“mo” frequency rank
45863
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malo mo
Definition mau, malévolo: combinação de me (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono) e o (pronome pessoal oblíquo átono, pronome demonstrativo masculino ou pronome demonstrativo neutro)

Letter map: malo vs mo

Shared letters muted; letters that set malo and mo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
malo
2 ch
mo

Role in the sentence - malo and mo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malo is anadjective and moapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45863, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malo is recorded at frequency rank #41,118, classified as anadj. mo is at rank #4,745, tagged as apron, pronounced /mo/.

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 45863, this pair ranks #19,519 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of malo vs mo

Shared letters: mo. Private to "malo": al. Private to "mo": -.

"malo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mo" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maloamlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "malo" and "mo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malo" is an adjective and "mo" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "malo" or "mo" show up more?
"mo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,745 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.

After this comparison

Pair "malo" vs "mo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,519 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malo" and "mo" 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 #19,519 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