earvsestarConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank
#186
“estar” frequency rank
39760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ear estar
Definition coclear associa uma característica (momentânea, não permanente) a um ser

Letter map: ear vs estar

Shared letters muted; letters that set ear and estar apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
ear
5 ch
estar

Part-of-speech tell for ear / estar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and estaraverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. estar is at rank #186, tagged as averb.

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 39760, this pair ranks #26,440 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs estar

Shared letters: aer. Private to "ear": -. Private to "estar": st.

"ear" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "estar" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • estaresatr · esstar · estarr · estra · esttar · etsar · setar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ear" for "estar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ear" is an adjective and "estar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ear" vs "estar" - which ranks higher?
"estar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #186 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "estar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,440 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ear" and "estar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs être". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #26,440 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