ob vs oh, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ob” is a pronoun and “oh” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,692
“ob” frequency rank: #1,682
“oh” frequency rank: 30374
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ob	oh
Definition	eu, pronome pessoal do caso nominativo da primeira pessoa do singular;	ach!

Where the eye mixes ob and oh

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

2 ch

Why the eye confuses ob with oh

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ob is /ob/ while oh is /ˈɔ/ ouvir^(fonte ?). Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - b in “ob” becomes h in “oh”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30374, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ob is recorded at frequency rank #28,692, classified as apron, pronounced /ob/. oh is at rank #1,682, tagged as anintj, pronounced /ˈɔ/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 30374, this pair ranks #37,998 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ob vs oh

Shared letters: o. Private to "ob": b. Private to "oh": h.

"ob" · 2 letters · shape VC · "oh" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ob" for "oh" ever safe?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ob" or "oh" show up more?

"oh" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,682 in our Portuguese list, against #28,692 for "ob". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

Full dictionary entry for "ob" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "oh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #37,998 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ob" and "oh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ob vs oni". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #37,998 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.