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não

Portuguese, noun/ˈnɐ̃w̃/

não is a Portuguese masculine noun meaning “no (a negative answer)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “negação”.

What does não mean in English?

adverb

  1. 1

    not; don't; haven't (negates the meaning of the verb or adverb)

    Eu não li esse livro.

  2. 2

    used in sentences containing a negative pronoun as the object; see double negative

    Eu não fiz nada.

  3. 3

    Brazilcolloquialused to emphasise or reinforce (in the case that there is a previous unstressed adverb não, see above) sentences containing a negative pronoun as the subject or already containing não

    Ninguém vai ser preso não.

  4. 4

    isn't (used to ask whether a person agrees with the proposition, rather than to ask for an unknown fact)

    Não está mau o chá?

  5. 5

    non- (forms antonyms of adjectives)

    O sistema é não-escalável.

  6. 6

    isn't it? right? (tag question)

    Ela está aqui, não?

interjection

  1. 1

    no (used to show disagreement or negation)

  2. 2

    no (used to show agreement with a negative question)

noun

  1. 1

    masculineno (a negative answer)

    Hoje recebi duas respostas: um sim e um não.

Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How Portuguese dictionaries define it

adverb: 1. usado para negar verbos e adjetivos 2. em frases interrogativas, serve como realce de afirmação implícita ou dúvida

interjection: 1. indica negação

noun: 1. negação

prefix: 1. expressa negação da palavra que o acompanha

The definition in the Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário), in Portuguese.

Source: Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.

Forms of não

  • naõ alternative obsolete
  • nam alternative obsolete
  • nom alternative nonstandard pronunciation-spelling
  • num alternative nonstandard pronunciation-spelling
  • n alternative Internet
  • ñ alternative Internet
  • nãos plural

Source: English Wiktionary and Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).

How do you pronounce não?

  • Brazil /ˈnɐ̃w̃/
  • Brazil [ˈnɐ̃ʊ̯̃]
  • Portugal /ˈnɐ̃w̃/

Sources: English Wiktionary, Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.

English words that translate to não

Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.

How common is não in Portuguese?

não appears 11,482 times per million words in written Portuguese.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).