noivsnoirWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: noi is a pronoun, noir is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#36,563
“noi” frequency rank
#25,758
“noir” frequency rank
62321
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature noi noir
Definition nós preto

Letter map: noi vs noir

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

3 ch
noi
4 ch
noir

Grammar separator: noi vs noir

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: noi is apronoun and noiranadjective. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “noi” sits inside “noir”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62321, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

noi is recorded at frequency rank #36,563, classified as apron. noir is at rank #25,758, tagged as anadj, pronounced /nwaʁ/.

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 62321, this pair ranks #6,727 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of noi vs noir

Shared letters: ino. Private to "noi": -. Private to "noir": r.

"noi" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "noir" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • noir ← nior · nnoir · noirr · nori · onir

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "noi" for "noir" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "noi" is a pronoun and "noir" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "noi" or "noir"?
"noir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,758 in our Portuguese list, against #36,563 for "noi". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "noi" vs "noir" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "noi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "noir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,727 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "noi" and "noir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noi vs noon". 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 #6,727 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