# eth vs ether

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### eth
*noun · IPA /ɛð/ · frequency rank #22,077*
A letter (capital Ð, small ð) introduced into Old English to represent its dental fricative, then not distinguished from the letter thorn, no longer used in English but still in modern use in Icelandic, the IPA and other phonetic alphabets to represent the voiced dental fricative "th" sound as in the English word then. The letter is also used in Faroese, but is generally silent in that language.

### ether
*noun · IPA /ˈiː.θə/ · frequency rank #17,131*
The substance formerly supposed to fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular as a medium breathed by deities.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/eth-vs-ether