ils

\il\

/\il\/ pron

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“ils” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #44,900) as a pronoun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#44,900
frequency rank, Portuguese
938
“I” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - eles

Corpus desk

Index PT-ils · ils · Portuguese

ils · rank #44,900 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #44,900
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 938
  • PHOTO-FINISH ill

Nearest frequency peer: ill (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Vizinhos de frequência do confusável “ils”

Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo

corpus weight

What this shows As barras situam “ils” face aos lemas portugueses mais próximos por rank, não um reprint da secretária de confusáveis.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

ils vs ir
33% similar
ils vs in
33% similar
ils vs is
67% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for ils
PropertyValue
Headwordils
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechPronoun
IPA\il\
Letters3
Frequency rank#44,900
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “ils”

A frequência vai do punhado de palavras do dia a dia (esquerda) à cauda longa quase nunca usada (direita).ilscai aqui:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

A escala é logarítmica (cada marca ≈ 10× mais rara). Na mesma faixa de raridade aparecem “ill” (#44,899), “ilegitimidade” (#44,898), “ina” (#44,904). Entre 938 lemas com “I”, “ils” fica em #44,900. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ils is neighbouring look-alikes ("ir", "in", …), not just typos; it is apronoun pronounced \il\. Frequency #44,900 among 938 “I” headwords. Gloss: "eles".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for ils, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ir", "in", "is", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct Portuguese form is ils, spelled I-L-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    eles

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

How do you spell "ils"?
"ils" is spelled I-L-S. The IPA pronunciation is \il\.
What does "ils" mean?
As a pronoun, "ils" means: eles
What words are commonly confused with "ils"?
"ils" is commonly confused with "ir", "in", "is". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ils"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ils" is \il\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ils" come from?
"ils" is a Portuguese word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar Portuguese words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ils", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Portuguese headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

ill#44,899ina#44,904dun#45,320gim#45,376

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list