apurarvsaturarTell them apart

Which to use

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

#11,390
“apurar” frequency rank
#21,370
“aturar” frequency rank
32760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature apurar aturar
Definition tornar puro; purificar; (por extensão) acrescentar e/ou suprimir características, de forma a melhorar: suportar

Letter map: apurar vs aturar

Shared letters muted; letters that set apurar and aturar apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. apurar and aturar follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
apurar
6 ch
aturar

Pair insight - apurar / aturar

apurar and aturar are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - p in “apurar” becomes t in “aturar”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apurar is recorded at frequency rank #11,390, classified as averb. aturar is at rank #21,370, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɐ.tu.ˈɾaɾ/.

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 32760, this pair ranks #34,945 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of apurar vs aturar

Shared letters: aru. Private to "apurar": p. Private to "aturar": t.

"apurar" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "aturar" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • apurar ← appurar · apruar · apuarr · apurarr · apurra · apurrar · auprar · paurar
  • aturar ← atruar · atturar · aturarr · aturra · aturrar · autrar · taurar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "apurar" for "aturar" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - p in “apurar” becomes t in “aturar”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "apurar" or "aturar"?
"apurar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,390 in our Portuguese list, against #21,370 for "aturar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "apurar" and "aturar".

  • Full dictionary entry for "apurar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aturar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,945 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apurar" and "aturar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "atar vs aturar". 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 #34,945 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