maltevsmatWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“malte” and “mat” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,244
“malte” frequency rank
#21,805
“mat” frequency rank
52049
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malte mat
Definition produto que resulta da germinação artificial e posterior dessecação de cereais casamento

Where the eye mixes malte and mat

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
malte
3 ch
mat

Look-alike desk: malte vs mat

A purely visual mix-up. malte (/ˈmaɫ.tɨ/) and mat (/mat/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52049, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malte is recorded at frequency rank #30,244, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmaɫ.tɨ/. mat is at rank #21,805, tagged as anoun, pronounced /mat/.

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 52049, this pair ranks #13,086 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malte vs mat

Shared letters: amt. Private to "malte": el. Private to "mat": -.

"malte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mat" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malteamlte · malet · mallte · maltte · matle · mlate · mmalte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "malte" and "mat" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈmaɫ.tɨ/ versus /mat/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "malte" vs "mat" - which ranks higher?
"mat" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,805 in our Portuguese list, against #30,244 for "malte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mat" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,086 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malte" and "mat" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malte 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 #13,086 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