está vs ETA, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#45
“está” frequency rank: #18,862
“ETA” frequency rank: 18907
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	está	ETA
Definition	terceira pessoa do verbo estar no presente do indicativo; indica condição temporária	Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ("Pátria Basca e Liberdade"), organização paramilitar que defende a independência do País Basco em relação à Espanha.

Letter map: está vs ETA

Shared letters muted; letters that set está and ETA apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. está runs 4 letters (VCCV) against ETA's 3 (VCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch

está

3 ch

ETA

Grammar separator: está vs ETA

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: está is averb and ETAanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18907, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

está is recorded at frequency rank #45, classified as averb. ETA is at rank #18,862, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced /ˈɛː.ta/.

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 18907, this pair ranks #51,966 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of está vs ETA

Shared letters: et. Private to "está": sá. Private to "ETA": a.

"está" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "ETA" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "está" and "ETA" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "está" is a verb and "ETA" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "está" vs "ETA" - which ranks higher?

"está" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45 in our Portuguese list, against #18,862 for "ETA". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "está" vs "ETA" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "está" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ETA" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #51,966 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"está" and "ETA" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ETA vs être". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #51,966 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.