earvseinTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank
#15,098
“ein” frequency rank
54672
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ear ein
Definition coclear (equipamento elétrico) ligado

Letter map: ear vs ein

Shared letters muted; letters that set ear and ein apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. ear and ein follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
ear
3 ch
ein

Part-of-speech tell for ear / ein

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and einanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54672, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. ein is at rank #15,098, tagged as anadv, pronounced /aɪ̯n/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 54672, this pair ranks #11,105 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs ein

Shared letters: e. Private to "ear": ar. Private to "ein": in.

"ear" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "ein" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ear" for "ein" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ear" is an adjective and "ein" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ear" vs "ein" - which ranks higher?
"ein" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,098 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.

After this comparison

You've compared "ear" and "ein". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ein" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,105 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ear" and "ein" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #11,105 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