nom vs nos, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“nom” is a noun and “nos” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,251
“nom” frequency rank: #42
“nos” frequency rank: 21293
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nom	nos
Definition	nome	a nós

Letter map: nom vs nos

Shared letters muted; letters that set nom and nos apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

nom

3 ch

nos

Grammar separator: nom vs nos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nom is anoun and nosapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - m in “nom” becomes s in “nos”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21293, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nom is recorded at frequency rank #21,251, classified as anoun. nos is at rank #42, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈnuʃ/.

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 21293, this pair ranks #49,015 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nom vs nos

Shared letters: no. Private to "nom": m. Private to "nos": s.

"nom" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nom" for "nos" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nom" or "nos" show up more?

"nos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42 in our Portuguese list, against #21,251 for "nom". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "nom" and "nos". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "nom" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #49,015 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nom" and "nos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nom vs noon". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #49,015 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.