at vs ave, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#1,457
“at” frequency rank: #5,708
“ave” frequency rank: 7165
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	at	ave
Definition	em, a	animal vertebrado, ovíparo, recoberto de penas, de bico córneo, sem dentes, e cujos membros posteriores servem para marcha, sendo os anteriores transformados em asas

Letter map: at vs ave

Shared letters muted; letters that set at and ave apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

ave

Grammar separator: at vs ave

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: at is apreposition and aveanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7165, 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\. ave is at rank #5,708, tagged as anoun.

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 7165, this pair ranks #67,036 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of at vs ave

Shared letters: a. Private to "at": t. Private to "ave": ev.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

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

"at" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,457 in our Portuguese list, against #5,708 for "ave". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "at" and "ave".

Full dictionary entry for "at" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #67,036 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"at" and "ave" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs ave". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #67,036 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.