elevselmoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#38
“ele” frequency rank
#26,722
“elmo” frequency rank
26760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ele elmo
Definition pronome pessoal da terceira pessoa do singular capacete de armadura antiga

Letter map: ele vs elmo

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

3 ch
ele
4 ch
elmo

Role in the sentence - ele and elmo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ele is apronoun and elmoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26760, 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/. elmo is at rank #26,722, tagged as anoun.

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 26760, this pair ranks #42,327 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ele vs elmo

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

"ele" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "elmo" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • elmoellmo · elmmo · elom · lemo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ele" and "elmo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ele" is a pronoun and "elmo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ele" or "elmo" show up more?
"ele" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our Portuguese list, against #26,722 for "elmo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ele" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "elmo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,327 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ele" and "elmo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "elio vs elmo". 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 #42,327 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