el vs ele, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“el” is an article and “ele” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,143
“el” frequency rank: #38
“ele” frequency rank: 1181
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	el	ele
Definition	o, artigo definido masculino:	pronome pessoal da terceira pessoa do singular

Letter map: el vs ele

Shared letters muted; letters that set el and ele apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

ele

Part-of-speech tell for el / ele

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: el is anarticle and eleapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “el” sits inside “ele”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1181, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

el is recorded at frequency rank #1,143, classified as anarticle. ele is at rank #38, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈe.li/, /ˈe.lɪ/.

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 1181, this pair ranks #74,421 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of el vs ele

Shared letters: el. Private to "el": -. Private to "ele": -.

"el" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ele" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "el" and "ele" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "el" is an article and "ele" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "el" or "ele"?

"ele" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our Portuguese list, against #1,143 for "el". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "el" and "ele".

Full dictionary entry for "el" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ele" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #74,421 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"el" and "ele" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ele vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #74,421 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.