agvsatWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ag is a noun, at is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ag” is a noun and “at” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,643
“ag” frequency rank
#21
“at” frequency rank
7664
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ag at
Definition Clipping of agriculture. In, near, or in the general vicinity of (a particular place).

Where the eye mixes ag and at

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch
ag
2 ch
at

Visual trap between ag and at

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ag is /ˈæɡ/ while at is /æt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - g in “ag” becomes t in “at”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7664, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ag is recorded at frequency rank #7,643, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈæɡ/. at is at rank #21, tagged as aprep, pronounced /æt/.

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 7664, this pair ranks #506,130 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ag vs at

Shared letters: a. Private to "ag": g. Private to "at": t.

"ag" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "at" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ag" for "at" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ag" is a noun and "at" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ag" or "at"?
"at" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21 in our English list, against #7,643 for "ag". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ag" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "at" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #506,130 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ag" and "at" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ag vs amb". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #506,130 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