eatvsesTell them apart

Quick tell: eat is a verb, es is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“eat” is a verb and “es” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,550
“eat” frequency rank
#2,631
“es” frequency rank
31181
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature eat es
Definition comer ele, ela, aquilo, pronome da terceira pessoa do neutro singular do caso nominativo.

Where the eye mixes eat and es

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
eat
2 ch
es

Look-alike desk: eat vs es

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: eat is /ˈiːt/ while es is /'ɛs/ ouvir ^(fonte ?). Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31181, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

eat is recorded at frequency rank #28,550, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈiːt/. es is at rank #2,631, tagged as apron, pronounced /'ɛs/ 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 31181, this pair ranks #36,988 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of eat vs es

Shared letters: e. Private to "eat": at. Private to "es": s.

"eat" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "es" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "eat" for "es" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "eat" is a verb and "es" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "eat" or "es" show up more?
"es" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,631 in our Portuguese list, against #28,550 for "eat". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "eat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "es" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,988 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "eat" and "es" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear vs eat". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #36,988 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