Which to use
“ele” is a pronoun and “être” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #38
- “ele” frequency rank
- #48,731
- “être” frequency rank
- 48769
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ele | être |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | pronome pessoal da terceira pessoa do singular | ser vivo |
Where the eye mixes ele and être
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. ele runs 3 letters (VCV) against être's 4 (VCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: ele vs être
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ele is /ˈe.li/, /ˈe.lɪ/ while être is /ɛtʁ/. 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 (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48769, 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/. 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 48769, this pair ranks #16,378 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ele vs être
Shared letters: e. Private to "ele": l. Private to "être": rtê.
"ele" · 3 letters · shape VCV · "être" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ele" and "être" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ele" or "être" show up more?
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 "ele" 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 #16,378 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ele" and "être" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "erre vs être". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #16,378 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.