Which to use
“than” is a conjunction and “they” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,187
- “than” frequency rank
- #11,171
- “they” frequency rank
- 24358
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | than | they |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | que (usado em comparações) | pronome pessoal de terceira pessoa plural referente a um grupo de pessoas sem especificação de gênero; eles ou elas |
Letter map: than vs they
Shared letters muted; letters that set than and they apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for than / they
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: than is aconjunction and theyapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24358, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
than is recorded at frequency rank #13,187, classified as aconj. they is at rank #11,171, tagged as apron.
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 24358, this pair ranks #45,277 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of than vs they
Shared letters: ht. Private to "than": an. Private to "they": ey.
"than" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "they" · 4 letters · shape CCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "than" and "they" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "than" or "they" show up more?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "than" and "they".
- Full dictionary entry for "than" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "they" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #45,277 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "than" and "they" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "than vs thorn". 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 #45,277 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.