nah vs nos, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#26,820
“nah” frequency rank: #42
“nos” frequency rank: 26862
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nah	nos
Definition	perto	a nós

Where the eye mixes nah and nos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

nah

3 ch

nos

Look-alike desk: nah vs nos

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nah is /naː/ ouvir^(fonte ?) while nos is /ˈnuʃ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26862, 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 ?). nos is at rank #42, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈnuʃ/.

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 26862, this pair ranks #42,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nah vs nos

Shared letters: n. Private to "nah": ah. Private to "nos": os.

"nah" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nah" for "nos" ever safe?

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

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

"nos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42 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.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "nah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #42,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nah" and "nos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nah vs nami". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #42,213 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.