ú vs ui, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ú” is an adverb and “ui” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,175
“ú” frequency rank: #19,875
“ui” frequency rank: 64050
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ú	ui
Definition	onde	exprime surpresa, admiração, repugnância

Letter map: ú vs ui

Shared letters muted; letters that set ú and ui apart highlighted. No shared letter run.

1 ch

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for ú / ui

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ú is anadverb and uianintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64050, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ú is recorded at frequency rank #44,175, classified as anadv. ui is at rank #19,875, tagged as anintj, pronounced /ˈuj/.

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 64050, this pair ranks #5,934 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ú vs ui

Shared letters: none. Private to "ú": ú. Private to "ui": iu.

"ú" · 1 letters · shape V · "ui" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ú" and "ui" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ú" is an adverb and "ui" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ú" or "ui" show up more?

"ui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,875 in our Portuguese list, against #44,175 for "ú". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "ú" and "ui". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ú" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #5,934 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ú" and "ui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ú vs UBS". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #5,934 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.