alt vs am, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“alt” is an adjective and “am” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,650
“alt” frequency rank: #2,705
“am” frequency rank: 24355
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	alt	am
Definition	velho	o / a usado com substantivos masculinos no caso nominativo singular quando a palavra começar com as letra b, f, m, p

Letter map: alt vs am

Shared letters muted; letters that set alt and am apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

alt

2 ch

Grammar separator: alt vs am

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alt is anadjective and amanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24355, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alt is recorded at frequency rank #21,650, classified as anadj, pronounced /alt/. am is at rank #2,705, tagged as anarticle.

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 24355, this pair ranks #45,281 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alt vs am

Shared letters: a. Private to "alt": lt. Private to "am": m.

"alt" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "am" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "alt" for "am" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alt" is an adjective and "am" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "alt" vs "am" - which ranks higher?

"am" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,705 in our Portuguese list, against #21,650 for "alt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "alt" and "am". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "alt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "am" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #45,281 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"alt" and "am" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs alt". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #45,281 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.