artevsaterWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: arte is a noun, ater is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“arte” is a noun and “ater” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#682
“arte” frequency rank
#39,000
“ater” frequency rank
39682
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arte ater
Definition forma de expressão subjetiva do ser humano não permitir que tenha seguimento; impedir que prossiga

Letter map: arte vs ater

Shared letters muted; letters that set arte and ater apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. arte (VCCV) and ater (VCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
arte
4 ch
ater

Role in the sentence - arte and ater

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: arte is anoun and ateraverb. On the page they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39682, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arte is recorded at frequency rank #682, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈaxt͡ʃi/. ater is at rank #39,000, tagged as averb.

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 39682, this pair ranks #26,520 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of arte vs ater

Shared letters: aert. Private to "arte": -. Private to "ater": -.

"arte" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "ater" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • arte ← aret · arrte · artte · atre
  • ater ← aetr · aterr · atter

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "arte" for "ater" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arte" is a noun and "ater" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "arte" or "ater" show up more?
"arte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #682 in our Portuguese list, against #39,000 for "ater". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "arte" and "ater". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,520 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arte" and "ater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "atar vs ater". 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 #26,520 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