earvselaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ear is a adjective, ela is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank
#48
“ela” frequency rank
39622
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ear ela
Definition coclear pronome pessoal da terceira pessoa do singular

Letter map: ear vs ela

Shared letters muted; letters that set ear and ela apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ear (VVC) and ela (VCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch
ear
3 ch
ela

Part-of-speech tell for ear / ela

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and elaapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39622, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. ela is at rank #48, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈɛ.lɐ/.

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 39622, this pair ranks #26,598 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs ela

Shared letters: ae. Private to "ear": r. Private to "ela": l.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ear" and "ela" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ear" is an adjective and "ela" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ear" or "ela" show up more?
"ela" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ela" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,598 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ear" and "ela" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #26,598 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