malvadovsmeladoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#23,040
“malvado” frequency rank
#46,950
“melado” frequency rank
69990
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malvado melado
Definition que tem índole perversa ou que é praticado com desrespeito, violência ou crueldade caldo grosso de cana-de-açúcar ou rapadura dissolvida e que é usado como sobremesa

Letter map: malvado vs melado

Shared letters muted; letters that set malvado and melado apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. malvado runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against melado's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
malvado
6 ch
melado

Grammar separator: malvado vs melado

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malvado is anadjective and meladoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malvado is recorded at frequency rank #23,040, classified as anadj. melado is at rank #46,950, tagged as anoun.

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 69990, this pair ranks #3,770 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malvado vs melado

Shared letters: adlmo. Private to "malvado": v. Private to "melado": e.

"malvado" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "melado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malvado ← amlvado · malavdo · mallvado · malvaddo · malvaod · malvdao · malvvado · mavlado
  • melado ← emlado · mealdo · meladdo · melaod · meldao · mellado · mleado · mmelado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malvado" for "melado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malvado" is an adjective and "melado" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "malvado" or "melado"?
"malvado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,040 in our Portuguese list, against #46,950 for "melado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "malvado" vs "melado" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "malvado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "melado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,770 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malvado" and "melado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "melado vs minado". 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 #3,770 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