altervsarderConfusable pair

Quick tell: alter is a pronoun, arder is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“alter” is a pronoun and “arder” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,189
“alter” frequency rank
#20,500
“arder” frequency rank
43689
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alter arder
Definition outro (dentre dois) inflamar-se, estar em chamas

Letter map: alter vs arder

Shared letters muted; letters that set alter and arder apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
alter
5 ch
arder

Part-of-speech tell for alter / arder

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alter is apronoun and arderaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43689, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alter is recorded at frequency rank #23,189, classified as apron. arder is at rank #20,500, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɐɾ.ˈdeɾ/.

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 43689, this pair ranks #21,936 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alter vs arder

Shared letters: aer. Private to "alter": lt. Private to "arder": d.

"alter" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "arder" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alteraletr · allter · alterr · altre · altter · atler
  • arderadrer · ardder · arderr · ardre · aredr · arrder · rader

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "alter" and "arder" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alter" is a pronoun and "arder" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "alter" vs "arder" - which ranks higher?
"arder" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,500 in our Portuguese list, against #23,189 for "alter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "alter" and "arder". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arder" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,936 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alter" and "arder" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alles vs alter". 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 #21,936 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