earsvseaseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“ears” and “ease” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,877
“ears” frequency rank
#4,015
“ease” frequency rank
7892
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ears ease
Definition plural of ear Lack of difficulty; the ability to do something easily.

Where the eye mixes ears and ease

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
ears
4 ch
ease

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. ears (/ɪəz/) and ease (/iːz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7892, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ears is recorded at frequency rank #3,877, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɪəz/. ease is at rank #4,015, tagged as anoun, pronounced /iːz/.

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 7892, this pair ranks #505,095 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ears vs ease

Shared letters: aes. Private to "ears": r. Private to "ease": -.

"ears" · 4 letters · shape VVCC  ·  "ease" · 4 letters · shape VVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • earsaers · earrs · earss · easr · eras
  • easeaese · eaes · easse · esae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ears" and "ease" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɪəz/ versus /iːz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "ears" or "ease"?
"ears" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,877 in our English list, against #4,015 for "ease". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list