negovsnegraWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“nego” and “negra” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,630
“nego” frequency rank
#1,984
“negra” frequency rank
17614
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nego negra
Definition negro, afrodescendente partida de desempate

Letter map: nego vs negra

Shared letters muted; letters that set nego and negra apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. nego runs 4 letters (CVCV) against negra's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
nego
5 ch
negra

Spelling & dictionary notes on nego vs negra

nego and negra are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17614, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nego is recorded at frequency rank #15,630, classified as anoun. negra is at rank #1,984, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈne.ɡɾɐ/.

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 17614, this pair ranks #53,593 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nego vs negra

Shared letters: egn. Private to "nego": o. Private to "negra": ar.

"nego" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "negra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nego ← engo · neggo · neog · ngeo · nnego
  • negra ← engra · neggra · negrra · nerga · ngera · nnegra

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nego" for "negra" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nego" or "negra" show up more?
"negra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,984 in our Portuguese list, against #15,630 for "nego". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "nego" and "negra". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nego" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "negra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,593 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nego" and "negra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nego vs nena". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #53,593 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