arevsartWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,038
“are” frequency rank
#2,554
“art” frequency rank
6592
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature are art
Definition unidade de medida de área equivalente a 100 metros quadrados arte

Where the eye mixes are and art

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
are
3 ch
art

Visual trap between are and art

A purely visual mix-up. are (/ˈa.ɾe/) and art (/aR/) 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 a single letter - e in “are” becomes t in “art”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6592, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

are is recorded at frequency rank #4,038, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈa.ɾe/. art is at rank #2,554, tagged as anoun, pronounced /aR/.

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 6592, this pair ranks #67,810 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of are vs art

Shared letters: ar. Private to "are": e. Private to "art": t.

"are" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "art" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "are" and "art" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈa.ɾe/ versus /aR/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "are" or "art"?
"art" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,554 in our Portuguese list, against #4,038 for "are". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "are" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "art" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #67,810 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "are" and "art" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs are". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #67,810 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