abortvsapartWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: abort is a noun, apart is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“abort” is a noun and “apart” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,277
“abort” frequency rank
#1,711
“apart” frequency rank
21988
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abort apart
Definition An early termination of a mission, action, or procedure in relation to missiles or spacecraft; the craft making such a mission. Placed separately (in regard to space or time).

Where the eye mixes abort and apart

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
abort
5 ch
apart

Look-alike desk: abort vs apart

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: abort is /əˈbɔːt/ while apart is /əˈpɑːt/. 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 (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21988, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abort is recorded at frequency rank #20,277, classified as anoun, pronounced /əˈbɔːt/. apart is at rank #1,711, tagged as anadv, pronounced /əˈpɑːt/.

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 21988, this pair ranks #419,891 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of abort vs apart

Shared letters: art. Private to "abort": bo. Private to "apart": p.

"abort" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC  ·  "apart" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • abortabbort · aborrt · abortt · abotr · abrot · aobrt · baort
  • apartaaprt · aparrt · apartt · apatr · appart · aprat · paart

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "abort" and "apart" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abort" is a noun and "apart" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "abort" or "apart"?
"apart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,711 in our English list, against #20,277 for "abort". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "abort" and "apart" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "abort" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "apart" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #419,891 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abort" and "apart" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "abort vs Arora". 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 #419,891 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list