errovsestoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,209
“erro” frequency rank
#22,970
“esto” frequency rank
24179
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature erro esto
Definition afastar-se do caminho, errar agitação das águas do mar; maré; preamar

Letter map: erro vs esto

Shared letters muted; letters that set erro and esto apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
erro
4 ch
esto

Role in the sentence - erro and esto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: erro is averb and estoanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24179, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

erro is recorded at frequency rank #1,209, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈer.roː/, /ˈɛr.roː/.. esto is at rank #22,970, tagged as anoun.

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 24179, this pair ranks #45,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of erro vs esto

Shared letters: eo. Private to "erro": r. Private to "esto": st.

"erro" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "esto" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • erroero · eror · rero
  • estoesot · essto · estto · etso · seto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "erro" for "esto" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "erro" is a verb and "esto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "erro" or "esto" show up more?
"erro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,209 in our Portuguese list, against #22,970 for "esto". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "erro" and "esto". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "erro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "esto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,500 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "erro" and "esto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "elio vs esto". 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 #45,500 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