alter vs atar, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#23,189
“alter” frequency rank: #48,254
“atar” frequency rank: 71443
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	alter	atar
Definition	outro (dentre dois)	apertar atilho com nó; amarrar; ligar; manietar:

Letter map: alter vs atar

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

5 ch

alter

4 ch

atar

Grammar separator: alter vs atar

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: alter is apronoun and ataraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71443, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alter is recorded at frequency rank #23,189, classified as apron. atar is at rank #48,254, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtaɾ/.

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 71443, this pair ranks #3,337 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of alter vs atar

Shared letters: art. Private to "alter": el. Private to "atar": -.

"alter" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC · "atar" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

alter ← aletr · allter · alterr · altre · altter · atler
atar ← aatr · atarr · attar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "alter" and "atar" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alter" is a pronoun and "atar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "alter" or "atar" show up more?

"alter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,189 in our Portuguese list, against #48,254 for "atar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "alter" vs "atar" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "alter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "atar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #3,337 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"alter" and "atar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afã vs atar". 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 #3,337 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.