notavsnowWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: nota is a noun, now is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#873
“nota” frequency rank
#5,122
“now” frequency rank
5995
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nota now
Definition papel-moeda agora

Where the eye mixes nota and now

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

4 ch
nota
3 ch
now

Look-alike desk: nota vs now

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nota is /ˈnɔ.tɐ/ while now is /naʊ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5995, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nota is recorded at frequency rank #873, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈnɔ.tɐ/. 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 5995, this pair ranks #68,541 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nota vs now

Shared letters: no. Private to "nota": at. Private to "now": w.

"nota" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "now" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • notannota · noat · notta · ntoa · onta

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nota" for "now" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nota" is a noun and "now" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nota" or "now" show up more?
"nota" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #873 in our Portuguese list, against #5,122 for "now". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nota" 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 #68,541 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nota" and "now" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noon vs now". 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 #68,541 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