ui vs uns, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#19,875
“ui” frequency rank: #485
“uns” frequency rank: 20360
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ui	uns
Definition	exprime surpresa, admiração, repugnância	alguns; certas pessoas

Letter map: ui vs uns

Shared letters muted; letters that set ui and uns apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

uns

Grammar separator: ui vs uns

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ui is anintj and unsanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20360, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ui is recorded at frequency rank #19,875, classified as anintj, pronounced /ˈuj/. uns is at rank #485, tagged as anarticle.

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 20360, this pair ranks #50,180 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ui vs uns

Shared letters: u. Private to "ui": i. Private to "uns": ns.

"ui" · 2 letters · shape VV · "uns" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

Frequency check: "ui" vs "uns" - which ranks higher?

"uns" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #485 in our Portuguese list, against #19,875 for "ui". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ui" and "uns".

Full dictionary entry for "ui" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "uns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #50,180 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ui" and "uns" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ú vs ui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #50,180 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.