alcevsalterWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: alce is a noun, alter is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,754
“alce” frequency rank
#23,189
“alter” frequency rank
71943
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alce alter
Definition mamífero artiodáctilo da família dos cervídeos (Alces alces), que ocorre nas regiões frias ao norte do hemisfério norte; de pelagem escura, ponta do focinho larga e arqueada e grande galhada espalmada, com numerosas pontas, presente somente nos machos [É o maior dos cervídeos, alcançando até 3 m de comprimento.] outro (dentre dois)

Letter map: alce vs alter

Shared letters muted; letters that set alce and alter apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
alce
5 ch
alter

Part-of-speech tell for alce / alter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alce is anoun and alterapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71943, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alce is recorded at frequency rank #48,754, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈaɫ.sɨ/. 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 71943, this pair ranks #3,204 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of alce vs alter

Shared letters: ael. Private to "alce": c. Private to "alter": rt.

"alce" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "alter" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alcealcce · alec · allce · lace
  • alteraletr · allter · alterr · altre · altter · atler

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "alce" for "alter" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alce" is a noun and "alter" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "alce" or "alter"?
"alter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,189 in our Portuguese list, against #48,754 for "alce". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "alce" vs "alter" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alce" 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 #3,204 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alce" and "alter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs 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 #3,204 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