AdelevsagileWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Adele is a name, agile is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#18,148
“Adele” frequency rank
#28,987
“agile” frequency rank
47135
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Adele agile
Definition weiblicher Vorname Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs agil

Where the eye mixes Adele and agile

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

5 ch
Adele
5 ch
agile

Look-alike desk: Adele vs agile

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Adele is [aˈdeːlə] while agile is [aˈɡiːlə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47135, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Adele is recorded at frequency rank #18,148, classified as aname, pronounced [aˈdeːlə]. agile is at rank #28,987, tagged as anadj, pronounced [aˈɡiːlə].

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 47135, this pair ranks #1,294,991 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Adele vs agile

Shared letters: ael. Private to "Adele": d. Private to "agile": gi.

"Adele" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "agile" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Adeleaddele · adeel · adelle · adlee · aedle · daele
  • agileaggile · agiel · agille · aglie · aigle · gaile

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Adele" and "agile" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Adele" is a name and "agile" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Adele" or "agile" show up more?
"Adele" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,148 in our German list, against #28,987 for "agile". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "Adele" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "agile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,294,991 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Adele" and "agile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "agile vs angle". 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 #1,294,991 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