ear vs être, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#39,574
“ear” frequency rank: #48,731
“être” frequency rank: 88305
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ear	être
Definition	coclear	ser vivo

Letter map: ear vs être

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

3 ch

ear

4 ch

être

Grammar separator: ear vs être

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ear is anadjective and êtreanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88305, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ear is recorded at frequency rank #39,574, classified as anadj. être is at rank #48,731, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɛtʁ/.

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 88305, this pair ranks #411 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ear vs être

Shared letters: er. Private to "ear": a. Private to "être": tê.

"ear" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "être" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ear" and "être" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

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

"ear" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,574 in our Portuguese list, against #48,731 for "être". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "ear" vs "être" 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 "être" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #411 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ear" and "être" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "erre vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #411 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.