AlanvsatarWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#3,247
“Alan” frequency rank
#48,254
“atar” frequency rank
51501
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Alan atar
Definition prenome masculino apertar atilho com nó; amarrar; ligar; manietar:

Letter map: Alan vs atar

Shared letters muted; letters that set Alan and atar apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Alan 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
Alan
4 ch
atar

Grammar separator: Alan vs atar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Alan is anoun and ataraverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51501, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Alan is recorded at frequency rank #3,247, classified as anoun. 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 51501, this pair ranks #13,552 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Alan vs atar

Shared letters: a. Private to "Alan": ln. Private to "atar": rt.

"Alan" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "atar" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Alan ← aaln · alann · alna · laan
  • atar ← aatr · atarr · attar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Alan" for "atar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Alan" is a noun and "atar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Alan" or "atar"?
"Alan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,247 in our Portuguese list, against #48,254 for "atar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "Alan" and "atar". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Alan" 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 #13,552 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Alan" 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 #13,552 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