ossvsOstWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: oss is a pronoun, Ost is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“oss” is a pronoun and “Ost” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,905
“oss” frequency rank
#27,958
“Ost” frequency rank
59863
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature oss Ost
Definition nos leste

Letter map: oss vs Ost

Shared letters muted; letters that set oss and Ost apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
oss
3 ch
Ost

Part-of-speech tell for oss / Ost

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: oss is apronoun and Ostanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - s in “oss” becomes t in “Ost”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59863, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

oss is recorded at frequency rank #31,905, classified as apron. Ost is at rank #27,958, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɔst/.

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 59863, this pair ranks #7,960 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of oss vs Ost

Shared letters: os. Private to "oss": -. Private to "Ost": t.

"oss" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "Ost" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "oss" for "Ost" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "oss" is a pronoun and "Ost" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "oss" or "Ost" show up more?
"Ost" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,958 in our Portuguese list, against #31,905 for "oss". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "oss" vs "Ost" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "oss" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,960 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "oss" and "Ost" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oni vs oss". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #7,960 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