estavsevraWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: esta is a verb, evra is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“esta” is a verb and “evra” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,787
“esta” frequency rank
#34,091
“evra” frequency rank
72878
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature esta evra
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe ester. Euro.

Where the eye mixes esta and evra

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. esta and evra follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
esta
4 ch
evra

Look-alike desk: esta vs evra

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: esta is \ɛs.ta\ while evra is \ɛ.vra\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72878, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

esta is recorded at frequency rank #38,787, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛs.ta\. evra is at rank #34,091, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛ.vra\.

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 72878, this pair ranks #42,440 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of esta vs evra

Shared letters: ae. Private to "esta": st. Private to "evra": rv.

"esta" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "evra" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • esta ← essta · estta · etsa
  • evra ← erva · evar · evvra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "esta" and "evra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "esta" is a verb and "evra" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "esta" or "evra" show up more?
"evra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,091 in our French list, against #38,787 for "esta". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "esta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "evra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,440 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "esta" and "evra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "essay vs esta". 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 #42,440 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list