early
/ˈɜːɹ.li/
The verdict
“early” is a moderately-common Portuguese word, ranked #15,563 in Portuguese word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #15,563
- frequency rank, Portuguese
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - cedo
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | early |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɜːɹ.li/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #15,563 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “early” sits in Portuguese frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Portuguese entry for early is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɜːɹ.li/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,563 in overall Portuguese word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "cedo".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for early, with forms such as "aerly", "ealry", and "earlly". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "easy", "Earth", "ear", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Portuguese form is early, spelled E-A-R-L-Y.
Definition
- 1cedo
Synonyms
Antonyms
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aerly,ealry,earlly,earlyy,earrly,earyl,eraly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of early - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “early”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Portuguese spelling is E-A-R-L-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɜːɹ.li/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “easy” - see the side-by-side comparison. early vs easy
- Browse more Portuguese words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Portuguese words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.