earvsecoTell them apart

Quick tell: ear is a adjective, eco is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ear” is an adjective and “eco” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank
#7,146
“eco” frequency rank
46720
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ear eco
Definition coclear expressa nojo

Letter map: ear vs eco

Shared letters muted; letters that set ear and eco apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. ear (VVC) and eco (VCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch
ear
3 ch
eco

Part-of-speech tell for ear / eco

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and ecoanintj. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46720, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. eco is at rank #7,146, tagged as anintj, pronounced /ˈɛ.ku/.

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 46720, this pair ranks #18,588 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs eco

Shared letters: e. Private to "ear": ar. Private to "eco": co.

"ear" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "eco" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ear" for "eco" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ear" is an adjective and "eco" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ear" vs "eco" - which ranks higher?
"eco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,146 in our Portuguese list, against #39,574 for "ear". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "ear" vs "eco" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "eco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,588 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ear" and "eco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #18,588 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list