alistarvsaltarTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#29,214
“alistar” frequency rank
#8,141
“altar” frequency rank
37355
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alistar altar
Definition pôr em lista estrutura elevada perante a qual cerimônias religiosas são realizadas ou na qual sacrifícios podem ser oferecidos aos deuses, ancestrais, etc

Letter map: alistar vs altar

Shared letters muted; letters that set alistar and altar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. alistar runs 7 letters (VCVCCVC) against altar's 5 (VCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
alistar
5 ch
altar

Part-of-speech tell for alistar / altar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alistar is averb and altaranoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37355, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alistar is recorded at frequency rank #29,214, classified as averb, pronounced /ɐ.liʃ.ˈtaɾ/. 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 37355, this pair ranks #29,274 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alistar vs altar

Shared letters: alrt. Private to "alistar": is. Private to "altar": -.

"alistar" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC  ·  "altar" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alistar ← ailstar · alisatr · alisstar · alistarr · alistra · alisttar · alitsar · allistar
  • altar ← alatr · alltar · altarr · altra · alttar · atlar · latar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "alistar" for "altar" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alistar" is a verb and "altar" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "alistar" vs "altar" - which ranks higher?
"altar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,141 in our Portuguese list, against #29,214 for "alistar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "alistar" vs "altar" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alistar" 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 #29,274 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alistar" and "altar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alastrar vs alistar". 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 #29,274 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