Which to use
“erre” is a pronoun and “être” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #41,985
- “erre” frequency rank
- #48,731
- “être” frequency rank
- 90716
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | erre | être |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | nisto, nisso | ser vivo |
Where the eye mixes erre and être
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses erre with être
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: erre is /ˈɛrːɛ/ while être is /ɛtʁ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90716, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
erre is recorded at frequency rank #41,985, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈɛrːɛ/. 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 90716, this pair ranks #250 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of erre vs être
Shared letters: er. Private to "erre": -. Private to "être": tê.
"erre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "être" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- erre ← ere · erer · rere
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "erre" for "être" ever safe?
Frequency check: "erre" vs "être" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "erre" and "être" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "erre" 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 #250 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "erre" and "être" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ear 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 #250 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.