AngusvsaugustWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#12,362
“Angus” frequency rank
#822
“august” frequency rank
13184
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Angus august
Definition A male given name from Scottish Gaelic of mostly Scottish usage. Awe-inspiring, majestic, noble, venerable.

Where the eye mixes Angus and august

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Angus
6 ch
august

Visual trap between Angus and august

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Angus is /ˈæŋ.ɡəs/ while august is /ɔːˈɡʌst/. 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 (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13184, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Angus is recorded at frequency rank #12,362, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈæŋ.ɡəs/. august is at rank #822, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɔːˈɡʌst/.

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 13184, this pair ranks #477,311 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Angus vs august

Shared letters: agsu. Private to "Angus": n. Private to "august": t.

"Angus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "august" · 6 letters · shape VVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Angusagnus · anggus · angsu · anguss · anngus · anugs · nagus
  • augustaguust · auggust · augsut · augusst · augustt · auguts · auugst · uagust

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Angus" for "august" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Angus" is a name and "august" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Angus" or "august" show up more?
"august" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #822 in our English list, against #12,362 for "Angus". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Angus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "august" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #477,311 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Angus" and "august" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Angelus vs Angus". 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 #477,311 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list