onça
Portuguese, noun/ˈõ.sɐ/
onça is spelled O-N-Ç-A (4 letters) and appears 3.6 times per million words in written Portuguese, the 15,278th most frequent Portuguese word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Onça is a Portuguese feminine noun meaning “English or American ounce, a unit of mass equal to 28.35 g” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) defines it as “leopardo (Panthera pardus)”.
What does onça mean in English?
noun
- 1
feminineEnglish or American ounce, a unit of mass equal to 28.35 g
- 2
feminineonça, Portuguese ounce, a traditional unit of mass, usually equivalent to 28.7 g
- 3
feminineonça, ounce, a former gold coin weighing one Portuguese ounce
noun
- 1
Brazilfemininejaguar (Panthera onca, a feline of Latin America)
- 2
feminineleopard (Panthera pardus, a feline of Africa and Asia)
- 3
femininecougar (Puma concolor, a pan-American feline)
- 4
Brazilfeminineslanga R$50 bill, which bears the image of a jaguar
Source: English Wiktionary, Portuguese section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Portuguese dictionaries define it
noun: 1. leopardo (Panthera pardus) 2. onça-pintada (Panthera onca) 3. pessoa brava, furiosa 4. unidade de medida de massa equivalente a 28,3496525 gramas
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 onça
- onças plural
Source: English Wiktionary and Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce onça?
- Brazil /ˈõ.sɐ/
- Portugal /ˈõ.sɐ/
Sources: English Wiktionary, Portuguese Wiktionary (Wikcionário) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to onça
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is onça in Portuguese?
onça appears 3.6 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).