altarvsaterWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#8,141
“altar” frequency rank
#39,000
“ater” frequency rank
47141
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature altar ater
Definition estrutura elevada perante a qual cerimônias religiosas são realizadas ou na qual sacrifícios podem ser oferecidos aos deuses, ancestrais, etc não permitir que tenha seguimento; impedir que prossiga

Letter map: altar vs ater

Shared letters muted; letters that set altar and ater apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. altar runs 5 letters (VCCVC) against ater's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
altar
4 ch
ater

Role in the sentence - altar and ater

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: altar is anoun and ateraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47141, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

altar is recorded at frequency rank #8,141, classified as anoun. ater is at rank #39,000, tagged as averb.

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 47141, this pair ranks #18,139 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of altar vs ater

Shared letters: art. Private to "altar": l. Private to "ater": e.

"altar" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "ater" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • altar ← alatr · alltar · altarr · altra · alttar · atlar · latar
  • ater ← aetr · aterr · atter

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "altar" and "ater" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "altar" is a noun and "ater" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "altar" vs "ater" - which ranks higher?
"altar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,141 in our Portuguese list, against #39,000 for "ater". 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 "altar" and "ater". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "altar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,139 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "altar" and "ater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "atar vs ater". 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 #18,139 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