ahvsamaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ah is a intj, ama is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ah” is an intj and “ama” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#640
“ah” frequency rank
#1,454
“ama” frequency rank
2094
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ah ama
Definition exprime admiração mulher que amamenta filho alheio

Letter map: ah vs ama

Shared letters muted; letters that set ah and ama apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
ah
3 ch
ama

Part-of-speech tell for ah / ama

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ah is anintj and amaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2094, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ah is recorded at frequency rank #640, classified as anintj. ama is at rank #1,454, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɐ.mɐ/.

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 2094, this pair ranks #73,396 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ah vs ama

Shared letters: a. Private to "ah": h. Private to "ama": m.

"ah" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "ama" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ah" and "ama" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ah" is an intj and "ama" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ah" or "ama" show up more?
"ah" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #640 in our Portuguese list, against #1,454 for "ama". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ah" and "ama".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ama" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,396 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ah" and "ama" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs ama". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #73,396 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