Which to use
“at” is a preposition and “atum” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,457
- “at” frequency rank
- #16,684
- “atum” frequency rank
- 18141
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | at | atum |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | em, a | peixe da família dos Escombrídeos muito usado na alimentação quer em fresco, quer em conserva |
Where the eye mixes at and atum
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: at vs atum
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: at is \æt\ while atum is /ɐ.ˈtũ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “at” sits inside “atum”, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18141, 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\. atum is at rank #16,684, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtũ/.
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 18141, this pair ranks #52,916 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of at vs atum
Shared letters: at. Private to "at": -. Private to "atum": mu.
"at" · 2 letters · shape VC · "atum" · 4 letters · shape VCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- atum ← atmu · attum · atumm · autm · taum
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "at" for "atum" ever safe?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "at" or "atum" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "at" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "atum" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #52,916 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "at" and "atum" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "atar vs atum". 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 #52,916 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.