abater vs alter, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“abater” is a verb and “alter” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,953
“abater” frequency rank: #23,189
“alter” frequency rank: 41142
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	abater	alter
Definition	desabar, cair, demolir	outro (dentre dois)

Letter map: abater vs alter

Shared letters muted; letters that set abater and alter apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch

abater

5 ch

alter

Grammar separator: abater vs alter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: abater is averb and alterapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41142, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abater is recorded at frequency rank #17,953, classified as averb, pronounced /ɐ.bɐ.ˈteɾ/. alter is at rank #23,189, tagged as apron.

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 41142, this pair ranks #24,847 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of abater vs alter

Shared letters: aert. Private to "abater": b. Private to "alter": l.

"abater" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC · "alter" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

abater ← aabter · abaetr · abaterr · abatre · abatter · abbater · abtaer · baater
alter ← aletr · allter · alterr · altre · altter · atler

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "abater" and "alter" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "abater" or "alter"?

"abater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,953 in our Portuguese list, against #23,189 for "alter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "abater" and "alter". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "abater" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "alter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #24,847 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"abater" and "alter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alles vs alter". 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 #24,847 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.