negovsnewConfusable pair

Quick tell: nego is a noun, new is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nego” is a noun and “new” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,630
“nego” frequency rank
#1,338
“new” frequency rank
16968
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nego new
Definition negro, afrodescendente novo:

Letter map: nego vs new

Shared letters muted; letters that set nego and new apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. nego runs 4 letters (CVCV) against new's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
nego
3 ch
new

Grammar separator: nego vs new

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nego is anoun and newanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16968, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nego is recorded at frequency rank #15,630, classified as anoun. new is at rank #1,338, tagged as anadj, pronounced /nuː/.

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 16968, this pair ranks #54,406 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nego vs new

Shared letters: en. Private to "nego": go. Private to "new": w.

"nego" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "new" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nego ← engo · neggo · neog · ngeo · nnego

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nego" and "new" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nego" is a noun and "new" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "nego" or "new"?
"new" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,338 in our Portuguese list, against #15,630 for "nego". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "nego" and "new".

  • Full dictionary entry for "nego" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "new" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,406 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nego" and "new" 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 #54,406 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