ages vs als, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ages” is a noun and “als” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,816
“ages” frequency rank: #17,755
“als” frequency rank: 20571
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ages	als
Definition	plural of age	Obsolete form of also.

Letter map: ages vs als

Shared letters muted; letters that set ages and als apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

ages

3 ch

als

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ages is anoun and alsanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20571, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ages is recorded at frequency rank #2,816, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈeɪ.d͡ʒɪz/. als is at rank #17,755, tagged as anadv.

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 20571, this pair ranks #430,172 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ages vs als

Shared letters: as. Private to "ages": eg. Private to "als": l.

"ages" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "als" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

ages ← aegs · agess · agges · agse · gaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ages" and "als" be used interchangeably?

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

Which is more common, "ages" or "als"?

"ages" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,816 in our English list, against #17,755 for "als". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.