úvsusTell them apart

Quick tell: ú is a adverb, us is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#44,175
“ú” frequency rank
#999
“us” frequency rank
45174
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ú us
Definition onde nos

Letter map: ú vs us

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

1 ch
ú
2 ch
us

Grammar separator: ú vs us

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ú is anadverb and usapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45174, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ú is recorded at frequency rank #44,175, classified as anadv. us is at rank #999, tagged as apron, pronounced /ʌs/.

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 45174, this pair ranks #20,238 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ú vs us

Shared letters: none. Private to "ú": ú. Private to "us": su.

"ú" · 1 letters · shape V  ·  "us" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ú" and "us" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ú" is an adverb and "us" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ú" or "us" show up more?
"us" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #999 in our Portuguese list, against #44,175 for "ú". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ú" and "us".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ú" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "us" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,238 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ú" and "us" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ú vs UBS". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #20,238 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