nessavsnévoaTell them apart

Quick tell: nessa is a contraction, névoa is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nessa” is a contraction and “névoa” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#524
“nessa” frequency rank
#22,103
“névoa” frequency rank
22627
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nessa névoa
Definition contração da preposição em com o pronome demonstrativo essa nevoeiro pouco denso

Where the eye mixes nessa and névoa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. nessa (CVCCV) and névoa (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
nessa
5 ch
névoa

Look-alike desk: nessa vs névoa

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nessa is /ˈnɛ.sɐ/ while névoa is /ˈnɛ.vwɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22627, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nessa is recorded at frequency rank #524, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ˈnɛ.sɐ/. névoa is at rank #22,103, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈnɛ.vwɐ/.

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 22627, this pair ranks #47,370 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nessa vs névoa

Shared letters: an. Private to "nessa": es. Private to "névoa": ové.

"nessa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "névoa" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nessa ← enssa · nesa · nesas · nnessa · nsesa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nessa" and "névoa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nessa" is a contraction and "névoa" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nessa" or "névoa" show up more?
"nessa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #524 in our Portuguese list, against #22,103 for "névoa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nessa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "névoa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #47,370 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nessa" and "névoa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nena vs névoa". 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 #47,370 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