undvsusWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#29,551
“und” frequency rank
#999
“us” frequency rank
30550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature und us
Definition (conjunção coordenativa) e. nos

Where the eye mixes und and us

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
und
2 ch
us

Look-alike desk: und vs us

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: und is /ʊnt/ while us is /ʌs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (conjunction vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

und is recorded at frequency rank #29,551, classified as aconj, pronounced /ʊnt/. 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 30550, this pair ranks #37,758 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of und vs us

Shared letters: u. Private to "und": dn. Private to "us": s.

"und" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "us" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "und" and "us" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "und" is a conjunction and "us" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "und" or "us" show up more?
"us" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #999 in our Portuguese list, against #29,551 for "und". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "und" 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 #37,758 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "und" and "us" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ú vs und". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #37,758 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