and vs at, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“and” is a conjunction and “at” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#303
“and” frequency rank: #1,457
“at” frequency rank: 1760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	and	at
Definition	equivalente à conjunção e:	em, a

Where the eye mixes and and at

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

and

2 ch

Visual trap between and and at

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: and is /ænd/, /ən(d)/ while at is \æt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (conjunction vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

and is recorded at frequency rank #303, classified as aconj, pronounced /ænd/, /ən(d)/. at is at rank #1,457, tagged as aprep, pronounced \æt\.

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 1760, this pair ranks #73,745 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of and vs at

Shared letters: a. Private to "and": dn. Private to "at": t.

"and" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "at" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "and" for "at" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "and" is a conjunction and "at" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "and" or "at"?

"and" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #303 in our Portuguese list, against #1,457 for "at". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "and" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "at" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #73,745 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"and" and "at" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs at". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #73,745 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.