easevsereTell them apart

Quick tell: ease is a noun, ere is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ease” is a noun and “ere” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,015
“ease” frequency rank
#24,153
“ere” frequency rank
28168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ease ere
Definition Lack of difficulty; the ability to do something easily. At an earlier time.

Where the eye mixes ease and ere

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
ease
3 ch
ere

Visual trap between ease and ere

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ease is /iːz/ while ere is /ɛə/. 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 (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ease is recorded at frequency rank #4,015, classified as anoun, pronounced /iːz/. ere is at rank #24,153, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ɛə/.

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 28168, this pair ranks #373,209 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ease vs ere

Shared letters: e. Private to "ease": as. Private to "ere": r.

"ease" · 4 letters · shape VVCV  ·  "ere" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • easeaese · eaes · easse · esae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ease" for "ere" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ease" is a noun and "ere" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ease" vs "ere" - which ranks higher?
"ease" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,015 in our English list, against #24,153 for "ere". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "ease" and "ere" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ease" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ere" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #373,209 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ease" and "ere" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ere vs Eri". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #373,209 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list