nah vs né, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#26,820
“nah” frequency rank: #1,856
“né” frequency rank: 28676
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nah	né
Definition	perto	particípio passado do verbo naitre

Letter map: nah vs né

Shared letters muted; letters that set nah and né apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

nah

2 ch

né

Role in the sentence - nah and né

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nah is anadjective and néaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28676, 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 ?). né is at rank #1,856, tagged as averb.

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 28676, this pair ranks #40,121 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nah vs né

Shared letters: n. Private to "nah": ah. Private to "né": é.

"nah" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "né" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nah" for "né" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nah" is an adjective and "né" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "nah" vs "né" - which ranks higher?

"né" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,856 in our Portuguese list, against #26,820 for "nah". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "nah" vs "né" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "nah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "né" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #40,121 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nah" and "né" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nah vs nami". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #40,121 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.