eravseramWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#72
“era” frequency rank
#425
“eram” frequency rank
497
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature era eram
Definition época, período terceira pessoa do plural do pretérito imperfeito do indicativo do verbo ser

Where the eye mixes era and eram

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

3 ch
era
4 ch
eram

Visual trap between era and eram

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: era is /ˈɛ.ɾə/ while eram is /ˈɛ.ɾã/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “era” sits inside “eram”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 497, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

era is recorded at frequency rank #72, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛ.ɾə/. eram is at rank #425, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈɛ.ɾã/.

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 497, this pair ranks #75,167 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of era vs eram

Shared letters: aer. Private to "era": -. Private to "eram": m.

"era" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "eram" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • eramearm · eramm · erma · erram · ream

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "era" and "eram" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "era" is a noun and "eram" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "era" or "eram"?
"era" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #72 in our Portuguese list, against #425 for "eram". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "era" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "eram" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,167 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "era" and "eram" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "era 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 #75,167 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