ale vs alter, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#17,419
“ale” frequency rank: #23,189
“alter” frequency rank: 40608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ale	alter
Definition	reflexo da lua na água	outro (dentre dois)

Letter map: ale vs alter

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

3 ch

ale

5 ch

alter

Part-of-speech tell for ale / alter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ale is anoun and alterapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ale is recorded at frequency rank #17,419, classified as anoun, pronounced /a.ˈle/. 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 40608, this pair ranks #25,463 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ale vs alter

Shared letters: ael. Private to "ale": -. Private to "alter": rt.

"ale" · 3 letters · shape VCV · "alter" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

alter ← aletr · allter · alterr · altre · altter · atler

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ale" and "alter" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ale" is a noun and "alter" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ale" or "alter" show up more?

"ale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,419 in our Portuguese list, against #23,189 for "alter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "ale" 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 #25,463 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ale" and "alter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alles vs alter". 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 #25,463 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.