Plural Endings to Portuguese Nouns Ending in -ão

Nouns ending in the nasal diphthong ‘-ão’ are quite common in Portuguese. While one might assume these nouns form their plural by simply adding an ‘s’—resulting in ‘-ãos’—this is not the most frequent plural pattern. In fact, in most cases, the plural spelling will be different.

Here are the plural forms of Portuguese nouns ending in ‘-ão’. Notice that the first pattern is clearly the most common.

ões /õjʃ/  

Examples:

• situação → situações
• cartão → cartões
• união → uniões
• …

ães /ãjʃ/ 

• pão → pães
• cão → cães
• alemão → alemães
• …

aõs /ãwʃ/ 

• mão → mãos
• irmão → irmãos
• órgão → órgãos
• …