atvsAvaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#21
“at” frequency rank
#15,104
“Ava” frequency rank
15125
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature at Ava
Definition In, near, or in the general vicinity of (a particular place). A female given name from Hebrew, a variant of Eva.

Where the eye mixes at and Ava

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

2 ch
at
3 ch
Ava

Look-alike desk: at vs Ava

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: at is /æt/ while Ava is /ˈeɪvə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15125, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

at is recorded at frequency rank #21, classified as aprep, pronounced /æt/. Ava is at rank #15,104, tagged as aname, pronounced /ˈeɪvə/.

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 15125, this pair ranks #465,902 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of at vs Ava

Shared letters: a. Private to "at": t. Private to "Ava": v.

"at" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "Ava" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "at" and "Ava" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "at" is a preposition and "Ava" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "at" or "Ava"?
"at" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21 in our English list, against #15,104 for "Ava". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "at" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ava" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #465,902 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "at" and "Ava" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Asta vs Ava". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #465,902 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