atavsatualWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ata is a noun, atual is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#8,716
“ata” frequency rank
#694
“atual” frequency rank
9410
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ata atual
Definition registro escrito do que se passou em uma reunião que está em atuação

Where the eye mixes ata and atual

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ata
5 ch
atual

Why the eye confuses ata with atual

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ata is /ˈa.tɐ/ while atual is /ɐ.ˈtwaɫ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9410, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ata is recorded at frequency rank #8,716, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈa.tɐ/. atual is at rank #694, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɐ.ˈtwaɫ/.

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 9410, this pair ranks #64,028 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ata vs atual

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

"ata" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "atual" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • atualataul · attual · atuall · atula · autal · taual

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ata" and "atual" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ata" is a noun and "atual" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ata" or "atual"?
"atual" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #694 in our Portuguese list, against #8,716 for "ata". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "ata" and "atual" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ata" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atual" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,028 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ata" and "atual" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs ata". 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 #64,028 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