ni vs nua, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#8,234
“ni” frequency rank: #7,808
“nua” frequency rank: 16042
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ni	nua
Definition	nós, pronome da segunda pessoa do plural	feminino de nu

Letter map: ni vs nua

Shared letters muted; letters that set ni and nua apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

nua

Part-of-speech tell for ni / nua

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ni is apronoun and nuaanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16042, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ni is recorded at frequency rank #8,234, classified as apron. nua is at rank #7,808, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈnu.ɐ/.

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 16042, this pair ranks #55,603 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ni vs nua

Shared letters: n. Private to "ni": i. Private to "nua": au.

"ni" · 2 letters · shape CV · "nua" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ni" for "nua" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "ni" vs "nua" - which ranks higher?

"nua" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,808 in our Portuguese list, against #8,234 for "ni". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ni" and "nua". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ni" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nua" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #55,603 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ni" and "nua" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nami vs ni". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #55,603 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.