este vs être, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“este” is a pronoun and “être” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#77
“este” frequency rank: #48,731
“être” frequency rank: 48808
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	este	être
Definition	relativo a alguém ou alguma coisa que esteja perto de quem fala:	ser vivo

Letter map: este vs être

Shared letters muted; letters that set este and être apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

este

4 ch

être

Grammar separator: este vs être

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: este is apronoun and êtreanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

este is recorded at frequency rank #77, classified as apron. 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 48808, this pair ranks #16,333 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of este vs être

Shared letters: et. Private to "este": s. Private to "être": rê.

"este" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "être" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

este ← eset · esste · estte · etse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "este" and "être" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "este" is a pronoun and "être" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "este" vs "être" - which ranks higher?

"este" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #77 in our Portuguese list, against #48,731 for "être". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "este" and "être". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "este" 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 #16,333 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"este" and "être" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "erre 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 #16,333 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.