althovsATOWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: altho is a conjunction, ATO is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“altho” is a conjunction and “ATO” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,055
“altho” frequency rank
#34,783
“ATO” frequency rank
78838
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature altho ATO
Definition Alternative spelling of although. Acronym of assisted take-off.

Letter map: altho vs ATO

Shared letters muted; letters that set altho and ATO apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. altho runs 5 letters (VCCCV) against ATO's 3 (VCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
altho
3 ch
ATO

Role in the sentence - altho and ATO

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: altho is aconjunction and ATOanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78838, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

altho is recorded at frequency rank #44,055, classified as aconj. ATO is at rank #34,783, tagged as anoun.

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 78838, this pair ranks #23,655 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of altho vs ATO

Shared letters: aot. Private to "altho": hl. Private to "ATO": -.

"altho" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "ATO" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • altho ← alhto · alltho · althho · altoh · alttho · atlho · latho

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "altho" for "ATO" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "altho" is a conjunction and "ATO" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "altho" vs "ATO" - which ranks higher?
"ATO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,783 in our English list, against #44,055 for "altho". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "altho" vs "ATO" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "altho" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ATO" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,655 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "altho" and "ATO" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "algo vs altho". 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 #23,655 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