apertovsatentoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: aperto is a noun, atento is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aperto” is a noun and “atento” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,129
“aperto” frequency rank
#7,864
“atento” frequency rank
17993
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aperto atento
Definition ato de apertar que presta atenção

Where the eye mixes aperto and atento

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. aperto and atento follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
aperto
6 ch
atento

Visual trap between aperto and atento

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: aperto is /ɐ.ˈpeɾ.tu/ while atento is /ɐ.ˈtẽ.tu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17993, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aperto is recorded at frequency rank #10,129, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈpeɾ.tu/. atento is at rank #7,864, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtẽ.tu/.

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 17993, this pair ranks #53,112 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aperto vs atento

Shared letters: aeot. Private to "aperto": pr. Private to "atento": n.

"aperto" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "atento" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aperto ← aeprto · aperot · aperrto · apertto · apetro · apperto · apreto · paerto
  • atento ← aetnto · atennto · atenot · atentto · atetno · atneto · attento · taento

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aperto" for "atento" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aperto" is a noun and "atento" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "aperto" vs "atento" - which ranks higher?
"atento" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,864 in our Portuguese list, against #10,129 for "aperto". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aperto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atento" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,112 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aperto" and "atento" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aperto vs aporte". 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 #53,112 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