malovsmuroConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#41,118
“malo” frequency rank
#4,664
“muro” frequency rank
45782
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malo muro
Definition mau, malévolo: construção comumente usada para separar terrenos

Letter map: malo vs muro

Shared letters muted; letters that set malo and muro apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. malo and muro follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
malo
4 ch
muro

Part-of-speech tell for malo / muro

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malo is anadjective and muroanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malo is recorded at frequency rank #41,118, classified as anadj. muro is at rank #4,664, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmu.ɾu/.

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 45782, this pair ranks #19,612 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of malo vs muro

Shared letters: mo. Private to "malo": al. Private to "muro": ru.

"malo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "muro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malo ← amlo · mallo · maol · mlao · mmalo
  • muro ← mmuro · mruo · muor · umro

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "malo" and "muro" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malo" is an adjective and "muro" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "malo" or "muro" show up more?
"muro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,664 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "malo" and "muro".

  • Full dictionary entry for "malo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "muro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,612 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malo" and "muro" 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 #19,612 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