nos vs nua, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#42
“nos” frequency rank: #7,808
“nua” frequency rank: 7850
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nos	nua
Definition	a nós	feminino de nu

Where the eye mixes nos and nua

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

nos

3 ch

nua

Why the eye confuses nos with nua

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nos is /ˈnuʃ/ while nua is /ˈnu.ɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7850, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nos is recorded at frequency rank #42, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈnuʃ/. 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 7850, this pair ranks #66,155 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nos vs nua

Shared letters: n. Private to "nos": os. Private to "nua": au.

"nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "nua" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

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

"nos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42 in our Portuguese list, against #7,808 for "nua". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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 "nua" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #66,155 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nos" and "nua" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nua vs null". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #66,155 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.