at vs ata, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“at” is a preposition and “ata” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,457
“at” frequency rank: #8,716
“ata” frequency rank: 10173
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	at	ata
Definition	em, a	registro escrito do que se passou em uma reunião

Where the eye mixes at and ata

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

2 ch

3 ch

ata

Why the eye confuses at with ata

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: at is \æt\ while ata is /ˈa.tɐ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “at” sits inside “ata”, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10173, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

at is recorded at frequency rank #1,457, classified as aprep, pronounced \æt\. ata is at rank #8,716, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈa.tɐ/.

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 10173, this pair ranks #63,020 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of at vs ata

Shared letters: at. Private to "at": -. Private to "ata": -.

"at" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ata" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "at" and "ata" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "at" is a preposition and "ata" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "at" or "ata" show up more?

"at" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,457 in our Portuguese list, against #8,716 for "ata". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "at" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ata" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #63,020 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"at" and "ata" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs ata". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #63,020 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.