nahvsnamWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: nah is a adjective, nam is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nah” is an adjective and “nam” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,820
“nah” frequency rank
#18,396
“nam” frequency rank
45216
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nah nam
Definition perto caso dativo do pronome pessoal my

Letter map: nah vs nam

Shared letters muted; letters that set nah and nam apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
nah
3 ch
nam

Role in the sentence - nah and nam

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nah is anadjective and namapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - h in “nah” becomes m in “nam”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45216, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nah is recorded at frequency rank #26,820, classified as anadj, pronounced /naː/ ouvir^(fonte ?). nam is at rank #18,396, tagged as apron.

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 45216, this pair ranks #20,182 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nah vs nam

Shared letters: an. Private to "nah": h. Private to "nam": m.

"nah" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "nam" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nah" and "nam" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nah" is an adjective and "nam" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nah" or "nam" show up more?
"nam" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,396 in our Portuguese list, against #26,820 for "nah". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "nah" and "nam". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nam" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,182 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nah" and "nam" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nah vs nami". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #20,182 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