ear vs ei, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank: #2,629
“ei” frequency rank: 42203
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ear	ei
Definition	coclear	ovo

Letter map: ear vs ei

Shared letters muted; letters that set ear and ei apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ear

2 ch

Role in the sentence - ear and ei

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and eianoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42203, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. ei is at rank #2,629, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛɪ/.

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 42203, this pair ranks #23,605 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs ei

Shared letters: e. Private to "ear": ar. Private to "ei": i.

"ear" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "ei" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ear" for "ei" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ear" is an adjective and "ei" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ear" or "ei" show up more?

"ei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,629 in our Portuguese list, against #39,574 for "ear". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "ear" vs "ei" 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 "ei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #23,605 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ear" and "ei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #23,605 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.