aliásvsaltarTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#2,661
“aliás” frequency rank
#8,141
“altar” frequency rank
10802
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aliás altar
Definition de outra maneira estrutura elevada perante a qual cerimônias religiosas são realizadas ou na qual sacrifícios podem ser oferecidos aos deuses, ancestrais, etc

Letter map: aliás vs altar

Shared letters muted; letters that set aliás and altar apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

5 ch
aliás
5 ch
altar

Part-of-speech tell for aliás / altar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: aliás is anadverb and altaranoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10802, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aliás is recorded at frequency rank #2,661, classified as anadv. 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 10802, this pair ranks #62,211 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aliás vs altar

Shared letters: al. Private to "aliás": isá. Private to "altar": rt.

"aliás" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC  ·  "altar" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • altaralatr · alltar · altarr · altra · alttar · atlar · latar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aliás" for "altar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aliás" is an adverb and "altar" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "aliás" or "altar" show up more?
"aliás" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,661 in our Portuguese list, against #8,141 for "altar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "aliás" and "altar". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aliás" 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 #62,211 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aliás" and "altar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "altar 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 #62,211 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