entrevsêtreTell them apart

Quick tell: entre is a preposition, être is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“entre” is a preposition and “être” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#71
“entre” frequency rank
#48,731
“être” frequency rank
48802
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature entre être
Definition designa relação de situação em meio de, ou de situação no espaço que separa ser vivo

Where the eye mixes entre and être

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

5 ch
entre
4 ch
être

Look-alike desk: entre vs être

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: entre is /ˈẽ.tɾɨ/ 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 (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48802, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

entre is recorded at frequency rank #71, classified as aprep, pronounced /ˈẽ.tɾɨ/. 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 48802, this pair ranks #16,344 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of entre vs être

Shared letters: ert. Private to "entre": n. Private to "être": ê.

"entre" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "être" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • entreenntre · enrte · enter · entrre · enttre · etnre · netre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "entre" and "être" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "entre" is a preposition and "être" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "entre" or "être" show up more?
"entre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #71 in our Portuguese list, against #48,731 for "être". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "entre" 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 #16,344 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "entre" and "être" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "erre 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 #16,344 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