ablevsAyeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: able is a adjective, Aye is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“able” is an adjective and “Aye” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,552
“able” frequency rank
#40,408
“Aye” frequency rank
78960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature able Aye
Definition in der Lage sein; etwas tun können nordfriesischer männlicher Vorname

Letter map: able vs Aye

Shared letters muted; letters that set able and Aye apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
able
3 ch
Aye

Role in the sentence - able and Aye

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: able is anadjective and Ayeaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

able is recorded at frequency rank #38,552, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈeɪbl]. Aye is at rank #40,408, tagged as aname, pronounced […].

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 78960, this pair ranks #226,782 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of able vs Aye

Shared letters: ae. Private to "able": bl. Private to "Aye": y.

"able" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "Aye" · 3 letters · shape VVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ableabble · ablle · albe · bale

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "able" for "Aye" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "able" is an adjective and "Aye" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "able" or "Aye" show up more?
"able" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,552 in our German list, against #40,408 for "Aye". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "able" vs "Aye" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "able" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Aye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #226,782 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "able" and "Aye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Aye vs puzzles". 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 #226,782 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list