escutavsestáWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#4,149
“escuta” frequency rank
#45
“está” frequency rank
4194
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature escuta está
Definition ato ou efeito de escutar terceira pessoa do verbo estar no presente do indicativo; indica condição temporária

Letter map: escuta vs está

Shared letters muted; letters that set escuta and está apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. escuta runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against está's 4 (VCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
escuta
4 ch
está

Role in the sentence - escuta and está

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: escuta is anoun and estáaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4194, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

escuta is recorded at frequency rank #4,149, classified as anoun. está is at rank #45, tagged as averb.

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 4194, this pair ranks #70,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of escuta vs está

Shared letters: est. Private to "escuta": acu. Private to "está": á.

"escuta" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "está" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • escuta ← ecsuta · esccuta · esctua · escuat · escutta · esscuta · esucta · secuta

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "escuta" and "está" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "escuta" is a noun and "está" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "escuta" or "está" show up more?
"está" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45 in our Portuguese list, against #4,149 for "escuta". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "escuta" and "está".

  • Full dictionary entry for "escuta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "está" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "escuta" and "está" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "espia vs está". 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 #70,799 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