nos vs now, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#42
“nos” frequency rank: #5,122
“now” frequency rank: 5164
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nos	now
Definition	a nós	agora

Where the eye mixes nos and now

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

nos

3 ch

now

Look-alike desk: nos vs now

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nos is /ˈnuʃ/ while now is /naʊ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - s in “nos” becomes w in “now”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nos is recorded at frequency rank #42, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈnuʃ/. now is at rank #5,122, tagged as anadv, pronounced /naʊ/.

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 5164, this pair ranks #69,531 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nos vs now

Shared letters: no. Private to "nos": s. Private to "now": w.

"nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "now" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nos" and "now" be used interchangeably?

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

Frequency check: "nos" vs "now" - which ranks higher?

"nos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42 in our Portuguese list, against #5,122 for "now". 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 "nos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "now" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #69,531 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nos" and "now" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noon vs now". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,531 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.