alçarvsaltarTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,259
“alçar” frequency rank
#8,141
“altar” frequency rank
51400
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alçar altar
Definition colocar mais alto, altear, erguer estrutura elevada perante a qual cerimônias religiosas são realizadas ou na qual sacrifícios podem ser oferecidos aos deuses, ancestrais, etc

Letter map: alçar vs altar

Shared letters muted; letters that set alçar and altar apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. alçar and altar follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
alçar
5 ch
altar

Part-of-speech tell for alçar / altar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alçar is averb and altaranoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - ç in “alçar” becomes t in “altar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51400, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alçar is recorded at frequency rank #43,259, classified as averb, pronounced /aɫ.ˈsaɾ/. altar is at rank #8,141, tagged as anoun.

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 51400, this pair ranks #13,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of alçar vs altar

Shared letters: alr. Private to "alçar": ç. Private to "altar": t.

"alçar" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "altar" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • altar ← alatr · alltar · altarr · altra · alttar · atlar · latar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "alçar" and "altar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alçar" is a verb and "altar" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "alçar" or "altar"?
"altar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,141 in our Portuguese list, against #43,259 for "alçar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "alçar" and "altar".

  • Full dictionary entry for "alçar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "altar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alçar" and "altar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alçar vs alce". 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 #13,641 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