ell vs ES, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ell” is a noun and “ES” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,255
“ell” frequency rank: #7,919
“ES” frequency rank: 37174
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ell	ES
Definition	A measure of length. An English ell was 1¼ yards (45 inches or 114 cm), a Scottish ell was about 37 inches (94 cm), a Flemish ell was ¾ yard (27 inches or 69 cm), while certain European ells were less than 50 cm.	Initialism of Espírito Santo: a state of Brazil.

Letter map: ell vs ES

Shared letters muted; letters that set ell and ES apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ell

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for ell / ES

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ell is anoun and ESaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37174, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ell is recorded at frequency rank #29,255, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛl/. ES is at rank #7,919, tagged as aname.

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 37174, this pair ranks #296,783 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ell vs ES

Shared letters: e. Private to "ell": l. Private to "ES": s.

"ell" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "ES" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ell" for "ES" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ell" is a noun and "ES" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "ell" or "ES" show up more?

"ES" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,919 in our English list, against #29,255 for "ell". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "ell" and "ES". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ell" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ES" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #296,783 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ell" and "ES" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ell vs Eri". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #296,783 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.