amvsamaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,705
“am” frequency rank
#1,454
“ama” frequency rank
4159
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature am ama
Definition o / a usado com substantivos masculinos no caso nominativo singular quando a palavra começar com as letra b, f, m, p mulher que amamenta filho alheio

Letter map: am vs ama

Shared letters muted; letters that set am and ama apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
am
3 ch
ama

Role in the sentence - am and ama

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: am is anarticle and amaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “am” sits inside “ama”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4159, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

am is recorded at frequency rank #2,705, classified as anarticle. 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 4159, this pair ranks #70,841 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of am vs ama

Shared letters: am. Private to "am": -. Private to "ama": -.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "am" for "ama" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "am" is an article and "ama" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "am" or "ama" show up more?
"ama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,454 in our Portuguese list, against #2,705 for "am". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "am" vs "ama" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "am" 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 #70,841 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "am" and "ama" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs am". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #70,841 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