antrovsatoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“antro” and “ato” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#46,168
“antro” frequency rank
#1,326
“ato” frequency rank
47494
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature antro ato
Definition caverna profunda e assustadora processo de fazer algo; manifestação real e tangível

Where the eye mixes antro and ato

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
antro
3 ch
ato

Why the eye confuses antro with ato

A purely visual mix-up. antro (/ˈɐ̃.tɾu/) and ato (/ˈato/ ou /ˈatu/_(plural:) /ˈatos/, /ˈatus/ ou /ˈatuʃ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47494, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

antro is recorded at frequency rank #46,168, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɐ̃.tɾu/. ato is at rank #1,326, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈato/ ou /ˈatu/_(plural:) /ˈatos/, /ˈatus/ ou /ˈatuʃ/.

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 47494, this pair ranks #17,745 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of antro vs ato

Shared letters: aot. Private to "antro": nr. Private to "ato": -.

"antro" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "ato" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • antroanntro · anrto · antor · antrro · anttro · atnro · natro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "antro" for "ato" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈɐ̃.tɾu/ versus /ˈato/ ou /ˈatu/_(plural:) /ˈatos/, /ˈatus/ ou /ˈatuʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "antro" or "ato" show up more?
"ato" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,326 in our Portuguese list, against #46,168 for "antro". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "antro" and "ato" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "antro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ato" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,745 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "antro" and "ato" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "antro vs atroz". 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 #17,745 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