ag vs are, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#7,643
“ag” frequency rank: #19
“are” frequency rank: 7662
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ag	are
Definition	Clipping of agriculture.	second-person singular simple present of be

Where the eye mixes ag and are

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

are

Visual trap between ag and are

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ag is /ˈæɡ/ while are is /ə(ɹ)/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7662, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ag is recorded at frequency rank #7,643, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈæɡ/. are is at rank #19, tagged as averb, pronounced /ə(ɹ)/.

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 7662, this pair ranks #506,141 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ag vs are

Shared letters: a. Private to "ag": g. Private to "are": er.

"ag" · 2 letters · shape VC · "are" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ag" for "are" ever safe?

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

Which is more common, "ag" or "are"?

"are" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19 in our English list, against #7,643 for "ag". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "ag" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "are" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #506,141 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ag" and "are" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ag vs amb". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #506,141 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.