nei vs no, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“nei” is a verb and “no” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,191
“nei” frequency rank: #15
“no” frequency rank: 27206
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nei	no
Definition	negar	forma enclítica do pronome o quando precedido de forma verbal terminada em som nasal

Letter map: nei vs no

Shared letters muted; letters that set nei and no apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

nei

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for nei / no

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nei is averb and noapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27206, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nei is recorded at frequency rank #27,191, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈnɛ.i/.. no is at rank #15, 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 27206, this pair ranks #41,807 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nei vs no

Shared letters: n. Private to "nei": ei. Private to "no": o.

"nei" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "no" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nei" and "no" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nei" is a verb and "no" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nei" or "no" show up more?

"no" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15 in our Portuguese list, against #27,191 for "nei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "nei" and "no".

Full dictionary entry for "nei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "no" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #41,807 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nei" and "no" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nami vs nei". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #41,807 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.