uni vs uns, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#18,214
“uni” frequency rank: #485
“uns” frequency rank: 18699
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	uni	uns
Definition	primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo unir	alguns; certas pessoas

Letter map: uni vs uns

Shared letters muted; letters that set uni and uns apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

uni

3 ch

uns

Part-of-speech tell for uni / uns

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: uni is averb and unsanarticle. On the page they differ by a single letter - i in “uni” becomes s in “uns”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18699, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

uni is recorded at frequency rank #18,214, classified as averb, pronounced /ʊ.ˈni/. 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 18699, this pair ranks #52,219 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of uni vs uns

Shared letters: nu. Private to "uni": i. Private to "uns": s.

"uni" · 3 letters · shape VCV · "uns" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

Which is more common, "uni" or "uns"?

"uns" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #485 in our Portuguese list, against #18,214 for "uni". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "uni" 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 #52,219 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"uni" and "uns" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ú vs uni". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #52,219 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.