maltevsmateTell them apart

Quick tell: malte is a noun, mate is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#30,244
“malte” frequency rank
#7,048
“mate” frequency rank
37292
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malte mate
Definition produto que resulta da germinação artificial e posterior dessecação de cereais sem brilho

Where the eye mixes malte and mate

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
malte
4 ch
mate

Why the eye confuses malte with mate

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: malte is /ˈmaɫ.tɨ/ while mate is /ˈma.tɨ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37292, 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/. mate is at rank #7,048, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈma.tɨ/.

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 37292, this pair ranks #29,352 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of malte vs mate

Shared letters: aemt. Private to "malte": l. Private to "mate": -.

"malte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malteamlte · malet · mallte · maltte · matle · mlate · mmalte
  • mateamte · maet · matte · mmate · mtae

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "malte" and "mate" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malte" is a noun and "mate" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "malte" or "mate" show up more?
"mate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,048 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.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "malte" and "mate" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,352 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malte" and "mate" 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 #29,352 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