losvsluaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: los is a pronoun, lua is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“los” is a pronoun and “lua” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#394
“los” frequency rank
#1,619
“lua” frequency rank
2013
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature los lua
Definition os, pronome demonstrativo satélite natural da Terra, que se destaca no céu durante a noite

Letter map: los vs lua

Shared letters muted; letters that set los and lua apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
los
3 ch
lua

Part-of-speech tell for los / lua

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: los is apronoun and luaanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2013, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

los is recorded at frequency rank #394, classified as apron. lua is at rank #1,619, tagged as anoun, pronounced /'lua/.

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 2013, this pair ranks #73,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of los vs lua

Shared letters: l. Private to "los": os. Private to "lua": au.

"los" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lua" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "los" for "lua" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "los" is a pronoun and "lua" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "los" or "lua"?
"los" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #394 in our Portuguese list, against #1,619 for "lua". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "los" and "lua". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "los" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lua" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "los" and "lua" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laca vs lua". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #73,479 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