ahamvsatarWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: aham is a intj, atar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aham” is an intj and “atar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,839
“aham” frequency rank
#48,254
“atar” frequency rank
81093
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aham atar
Definition expressa satisfação, aplauso ou surpresa, concordância apertar atilho com nó; amarrar; ligar; manietar:

Where the eye mixes aham and atar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. aham and atar follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
aham
4 ch
atar

Visual trap between aham and atar

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: aham is /ã.'hã/ while atar is /ɐ.ˈtaɾ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (intj vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81093, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aham is recorded at frequency rank #32,839, classified as anintj, pronounced /ã.'hã/. atar is at rank #48,254, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtaɾ/.

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 81093, this pair ranks #1,214 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of aham vs atar

Shared letters: a. Private to "aham": hm. Private to "atar": rt.

"aham" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "atar" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aham ← aahm · ahamm · ahham · ahma · haam
  • atar ← aatr · atarr · attar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aham" for "atar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aham" is an intj and "atar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "aham" or "atar" show up more?
"aham" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,839 in our Portuguese list, against #48,254 for "atar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aham" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,214 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aham" and "atar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afã vs atar". 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 #1,214 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