agevsamWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: age is a verb, am is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“age” is a verb and “am” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,692
“age” frequency rank
#2,705
“am” frequency rank
7397
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature age am
Definition envelhecer o / a usado com substantivos masculinos no caso nominativo singular quando a palavra começar com as letra b, f, m, p

Letter map: age vs am

Shared letters muted; letters that set age and am apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
age
2 ch
am

Grammar separator: age vs am

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: age is averb and amanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7397, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

age is recorded at frequency rank #4,692, classified as averb. am is at rank #2,705, tagged as anarticle.

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 7397, this pair ranks #66,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of age vs am

Shared letters: a. Private to "age": eg. Private to "am": m.

"age" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "am" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "age" and "am" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "age" is a verb and "am" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "age" or "am" show up more?
"am" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,705 in our Portuguese list, against #4,692 for "age". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "age" vs "am" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "age" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "am" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #66,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "age" and "am" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs age". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #66,742 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list