edgevsêtreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“edge” and “être” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#18,040
“edge” frequency rank
#48,731
“être” frequency rank
66771
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature edge être
Definition aresta, lado ser vivo

Where the eye mixes edge and être

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. edge and être follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
edge
4 ch
être

Visual trap between edge and être

A purely visual mix-up. edge (/ɛʤ/) and être (/ɛtʁ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66771, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

edge is recorded at frequency rank #18,040, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɛʤ/. 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 66771, this pair ranks #4,868 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of edge vs être

Shared letters: e. Private to "edge": dg. Private to "être": rtê.

"edge" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "être" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • edge ← dege · eddge · edeg · edgge · egde

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "edge" and "être" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ɛʤ/ versus /ɛtʁ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "edge" or "être"?
"edge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,040 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "edge" 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 #4,868 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "edge" and "être" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "erre 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 #4,868 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