er vs ets, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“er” is a pronoun and “ets” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,866
“er” frequency rank: #34,703
“ets” frequency rank: 46569
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	er	ets
Definition	ele, aquele, aquilo, terceira pessoa do masculino singular do caso nominativo	segunda pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo ésser

Letter map: er vs ets

Shared letters muted; letters that set er and ets apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

ets

Role in the sentence - er and ets

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: er is apronoun and etsaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46569, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

er is recorded at frequency rank #11,866, classified as apron. ets is at rank #34,703, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈeʦ/.

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 46569, this pair ranks #18,724 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of er vs ets

Shared letters: e. Private to "er": r. Private to "ets": st.

"er" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ets" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "er" and "ets" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "er" is a pronoun and "ets" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "er" or "ets" show up more?

"er" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,866 in our Portuguese list, against #34,703 for "ets". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "er" vs "ets" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "er" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #18,724 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"er" and "ets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "être vs ets". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #18,724 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.