nousvsnurWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: nous is a pronoun, nur is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#31,892
“nous” frequency rank
#35,702
“nur” frequency rank
67594
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nous nur
Definition nós, nos, pronome pessoal da primeira pessoa do plural. apenas, somente, meramente

Where the eye mixes nous and nur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. nous runs 4 letters (CVVC) against nur's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
nous
3 ch
nur

Visual trap between nous and nur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nous is /nu/ while nur is /nuːɐ̯/. 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 (pronoun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67594, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nous is recorded at frequency rank #31,892, classified as apron, pronounced /nu/. nur is at rank #35,702, tagged as anadv, pronounced /nuːɐ̯/.

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 67594, this pair ranks #4,578 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of nous vs nur

Shared letters: nu. Private to "nous": os. Private to "nur": r.

"nous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "nur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nous ← nnous · nosu · nouss · nuos · onus

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nous" and "nur" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nous" is a pronoun and "nur" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "nous" or "nur" show up more?
"nous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,892 in our Portuguese list, against #35,702 for "nur". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "nous" and "nur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,578 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nous" and "nur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noon vs nous". 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 #4,578 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