availablevsavoidableTell them apart

Which to use

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

#524
“available” frequency rank
#29,924
“avoidable” frequency rank
30448
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature available avoidable
Definition Such as one may avail oneself of; capable of being used for the accomplishment of a purpose. Capable of being vacated; liable to be annulled or made invalid; voidable.

Where the eye mixes available and avoidable

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

9 ch
available
9 ch
avoidable

Visual trap between available and avoidable

A purely visual mix-up. available (/əˈveɪ.lə.bəl/) and avoidable (/əˈvɔɪdəbl̩/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30448, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

available is recorded at frequency rank #524, classified as anadj, pronounced /əˈveɪ.lə.bəl/. avoidable is at rank #29,924, tagged as anadj, pronounced /əˈvɔɪdəbl̩/.

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 30448, this pair ranks #354,481 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of available vs avoidable

Shared letters: abeilv. Private to "available": -. Private to "avoidable": do.

"available" · 9 letters · shape VCVVCVCCV  ·  "avoidable" · 9 letters · shape VCVVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • availableaavilable · avaialble · availabble · availabel · availablle · availalbe · availbale · availible
  • avoidableaovidable · aviodable · avodiable · avoiadble · avoidabble · avoidabel · avoidablle · avoidalbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "available" and "avoidable" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/əˈveɪ.lə.bəl/ versus /əˈvɔɪdəbl̩/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "available" or "avoidable"?
"available" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #524 in our English list, against #29,924 for "avoidable". 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 "available" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "avoidable" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #354,481 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "available" and "avoidable" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "avoidable vs Avondale". 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 #354,481 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