ONUvsonzeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ONU is a abbrev, onze is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ONU” is an abbrev and “onze” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,850
“ONU” frequency rank
#5,665
“onze” frequency rank
9515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ONU onze
Definition sigla para a Organização das Nações Unidas número equivalente a dez mais um; cardinalidade de um conjunto que contenha onze elementos distintos; representado pelo símbolo 11 (algarismos arábicos) ou XI (algarismos romanos)

Letter map: ONU vs onze

Shared letters muted; letters that set ONU and onze apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ONU runs 3 letters (VCV) against onze's 4 (VCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
ONU
4 ch
onze

Part-of-speech tell for ONU / onze

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ONU is anabbrev and onzeanum. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9515, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ONU is recorded at frequency rank #3,850, classified as anabbrev. onze is at rank #5,665, tagged as anum, pronounced /ˈõ.zɨ/.

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 9515, this pair ranks #63,882 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ONU vs onze

Shared letters: no. Private to "ONU": u. Private to "onze": ez.

"ONU" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "onze" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • onze ← noze · onez · onnze · onzze · ozne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ONU" and "onze" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ONU" is an abbrev and "onze" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ONU" vs "onze" - which ranks higher?
"ONU" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,850 in our Portuguese list, against #5,665 for "onze". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "ONU" and "onze". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ONU" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "onze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,882 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ONU" and "onze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oni vs onze". 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 #63,882 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