EntevsestáTell them apart

Quick tell: Ente is a noun, está is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Ente” is a noun and “está” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,497
“Ente” frequency rank
#45
“está” frequency rank
17542
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Ente está
Definition pato terceira pessoa do verbo estar no presente do indicativo; indica condição temporária

Letter map: Ente vs está

Shared letters muted; letters that set Ente and está apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Ente and está follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
Ente
4 ch
está

Grammar separator: Ente vs está

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Ente is anoun and estáaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17542, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Ente is recorded at frequency rank #17,497, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛntə/ ouvir^(fonte ?). está is at rank #45, tagged as averb.

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 17542, this pair ranks #53,678 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Ente vs está

Shared letters: et. Private to "Ente": n. Private to "está": sá.

"Ente" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "está" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Ente ← enet · ennte · entte · etne · nete

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Ente" and "está" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Ente" is a noun and "está" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Ente" vs "está" - which ranks higher?
"está" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45 in our Portuguese list, against #17,497 for "Ente". 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 "Ente" and "está".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Ente" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "está" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,678 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Ente" and "está" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ente 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 #53,678 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