elevseliteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ele is a pronoun, elite is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38
“ele” frequency rank
#3,389
“elite” frequency rank
3427
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ele elite
Definition pronome pessoal da terceira pessoa do singular o que há de melhor na sociedade

Where the eye mixes ele and elite

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ele
5 ch
elite

Visual trap between ele and elite

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ele is /ˈe.li/, /ˈe.lɪ/ while elite is /ɛ.ˈli.tɨ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3427, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ele is recorded at frequency rank #38, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈe.li/, /ˈe.lɪ/. elite is at rank #3,389, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɛ.ˈli.tɨ/.

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 3427, this pair ranks #71,729 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ele vs elite

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

"ele" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "elite" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • eliteeilte · eliet · elitte · ellite · eltie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ele" for "elite" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ele" is a pronoun and "elite" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ele" or "elite" show up more?
"ele" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our Portuguese list, against #3,389 for "elite". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "ele" and "elite" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ele" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "elite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,729 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ele" and "elite" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Edite vs elite". 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 #71,729 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