atervsatlConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#39,000
“ater” frequency rank
#40,900
“atl” frequency rank
79900
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ater atl
Definition não permitir que tenha seguimento; impedir que prossiga água

Letter map: ater vs atl

Shared letters muted; letters that set ater and atl apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ater runs 4 letters (VCVC) against atl's 3 (VCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ater
3 ch
atl

Part-of-speech tell for ater / atl

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ater is averb and atlanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79900, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ater is recorded at frequency rank #39,000, classified as averb. atl is at rank #40,900, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈaːt͡ɬ/.

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 79900, this pair ranks #1,423 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ater vs atl

Shared letters: at. Private to "ater": er. Private to "atl": l.

"ater" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "atl" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ater ← aetr · aterr · atter

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ater" and "atl" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ater" is a verb and "atl" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ater" or "atl"?
"ater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,000 in our Portuguese list, against #40,900 for "atl". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ater" and "atl".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ater" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atl" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,423 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ater" and "atl" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acs vs atl". 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 #1,423 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