ear vs el, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank: #1,143
“el” frequency rank: 40717
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ear	el
Definition	coclear	o, artigo definido masculino:

Letter map: ear vs el

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

3 ch

ear

2 ch

Grammar separator: ear vs el

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and elanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40717, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. el is at rank #1,143, tagged as anarticle.

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 40717, this pair ranks #25,348 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs el

Shared letters: e. Private to "ear": ar. Private to "el": l.

"ear" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "el" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

Which is more common, "ear" or "el"?

"el" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,143 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ear" and "el".

Full dictionary entry for "ear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "el" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #25,348 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ear" and "el" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #25,348 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.