apes vs APL, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“apes” and “APL” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,951
“apes” frequency rank: #48,593
“APL” frequency rank: 64544
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	apes	APL
Definition	plural of ape	Initialism of acute promyelocytic leukemia.

Letter map: apes vs APL

Shared letters muted; letters that set apes and APL apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

apes

3 ch

APL

Spelling & dictionary notes on apes vs APL

apes and APL are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64544, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apes is recorded at frequency rank #15,951, classified as anoun, pronounced /eɪps/. APL is at rank #48,593, tagged as anoun.

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 64544, this pair ranks #77,186 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of apes vs APL

Shared letters: ap. Private to "apes": es. Private to "APL": l.

"apes" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "APL" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

apes ← aeps · apess · appes · apse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "apes" for "APL" ever safe?

No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Frequency check: "apes" vs "APL" - which ranks higher?

"apes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,951 in our English list, against #48,593 for "APL". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "apes" vs "APL" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "apes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "APL" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #77,186 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"apes" and "APL" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amb vs APL". 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 #77,186 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.