os vs our, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“os” is an article and “our” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19
“os” frequency rank: #7,958
“our” frequency rank: 7977
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	os	our
Definition	usado para apontar um nome definido, único	nosso, nossos, da gente

Where the eye mixes os and our

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

2 ch

3 ch

our

Why the eye confuses os with our

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: os is /uʃ/, /us/ (menos frequente); enfático: /oʃ/, /os/ (menos frequente) while our is /aʊɚ/, SAMPA: /aU@`/. 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 (article vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7977, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

os is recorded at frequency rank #19, classified as anarticle, pronounced /uʃ/, /us/ (menos frequente); enfático: /oʃ/, /os/ (menos frequente). our is at rank #7,958, tagged as apron, pronounced /aʊɚ/, SAMPA: /aU@`/.

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 7977, this pair ranks #65,978 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of os vs our

Shared letters: o. Private to "os": s. Private to "our": ru.

"os" · 2 letters · shape VC · "our" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "os" for "our" ever safe?

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

Which is more common, "os" or "our"?

"os" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19 in our Portuguese list, against #7,958 for "our". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "os" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "our" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #65,978 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"os" and "our" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oni vs our". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #65,978 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.