nabovsnoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: nabo is a noun, no is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nabo” is a noun and “no” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,455
“nabo” frequency rank
#9
“no” frequency rank
31464
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nabo no
Definition (Brassica rapa) Planta herbácea, bienal, cultivada por su raíz bulbosa o por sus hojas para uso en gastronomía. Muestra tallo recto, de hasta 80 cm de altura, hojas enteras, oblongas, verdes, con el margen liso, pecioladas, y flores amarillas, tetrámeras, terminales. Pertenece a la misma especie que la colza, una variedad desarrollada como oleaginosa. Adverbio de negación, respondiendo a una pregunta.

Where the eye mixes nabo and no

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
nabo
2 ch
no

Look-alike desk: nabo vs no

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nabo is [ˈnaβ̞o] while no is [ˈno]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nabo is recorded at frequency rank #31,455, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈnaβ̞o]. no is at rank #9, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈno].

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 31464, this pair ranks #206,955 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nabo vs no

Shared letters: no. Private to "nabo": ab. Private to "no": -.

"nabo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "no" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • naboanbo · nabbo · naob · navo · nbao · nnabo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nabo" for "no" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nabo" is a noun and "no" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "nabo" or "no" show up more?
"no" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9 in our Spanish list, against #31,455 for "nabo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nabo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "no" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #206,955 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nabo" and "no" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nabo vs nacos". 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 #206,955 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list