alt vs até, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#21,650
“alt” frequency rank: #55
“até” frequency rank: 21705
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	alt	até
Definition	velho	também, inclusive

Where the eye mixes alt and até

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch

alt

3 ch

até

Look-alike desk: alt vs até

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: alt is /alt/ while até is /ɐ.ˈtɛ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21705, 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/. até is at rank #55, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtɛ/.

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 21705, this pair ranks #48,478 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alt vs até

Shared letters: at. Private to "alt": l. Private to "até": é.

"alt" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "até" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

Which is more common, "alt" or "até"?

"até" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #55 in our Portuguese list, against #21,650 for "alt". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "alt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "até" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #48,478 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"alt" and "até" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs alt". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #48,478 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.