offvsonsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: off is a adverb, ons is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3,093
“off” frequency rank
#48,564
“ons” frequency rank
51657
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature off ons
Definition de maneira distanciada pronome pessoal neutro do caso nominativo da terceira pessoa do plural

Letter map: off vs ons

Shared letters muted; letters that set off and ons apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
off
3 ch
ons

Part-of-speech tell for off / ons

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: off is anadverb and onsapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51657, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

off is recorded at frequency rank #3,093, classified as anadv. ons is at rank #48,564, tagged as apron, pronounced /ons/.

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 51657, this pair ranks #13,426 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of off vs ons

Shared letters: o. Private to "off": f. Private to "ons": ns.

"off" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "ons" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "off" for "ons" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "off" is an adverb and "ons" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "off" vs "ons" - which ranks higher?
"off" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,093 in our Portuguese list, against #48,564 for "ons". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "off" vs "ons" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "off" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,426 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "off" and "ons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oni vs ons". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #13,426 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