are vs AU, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#19
“are” frequency rank: #6,867
“AU” frequency rank: 6886
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	are	AU
Definition	second-person singular simple present of be	Initialism of alopecia universalis.

Letter map: are vs AU

Shared letters muted; letters that set are and AU apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

are

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for are / AU

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: are is averb and AUanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6886, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

are is recorded at frequency rank #19, classified as averb, pronounced /ə(ɹ)/. AU is at rank #6,867, 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 6886, this pair ranks #509,562 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of are vs AU

Shared letters: a. Private to "are": er. Private to "AU": u.

"are" · 3 letters · shape VCV · "AU" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "are" and "AU" be used interchangeably?

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

Frequency check: "are" vs "AU" - which ranks higher?

"are" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19 in our English list, against #6,867 for "AU". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "are" vs "AU" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "are" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "AU" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #509,562 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"are" and "AU" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amb vs AU". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #509,562 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.