airevsaleWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“aire” and “ale” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#734
“aire” frequency rank
#15,530
“ale” frequency rank
16264
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aire ale
Definition Mezcla de gases que fluye libremente hacia todas las direcciones posibles y ocupa todo el espacio libre de un recinto. Cerveza de cebada, típica de las islas británicas, de color más oscuro, sabor más intenso y mayor graduación alcohólica que la cerveza rubia o lager.

Where the eye mixes aire and ale

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
aire
3 ch
ale

Look-alike desk: aire vs ale

A purely visual mix-up. aire ([ˈajɾe]) and ale ([ˈeɪ.l̩]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16264, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aire is recorded at frequency rank #734, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈajɾe]. ale is at rank #15,530, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈeɪ.l̩].

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 16264, this pair ranks #276,885 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aire vs ale

Shared letters: ae. Private to "aire": ir. Private to "ale": l.

"aire" · 4 letters · shape VVCV  ·  "ale" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aireaier · airre · arie · iare

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "aire" and "ale" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈajɾe] versus [ˈeɪ.l̩]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "aire" vs "ale" - which ranks higher?
"aire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #734 in our Spanish list, against #15,530 for "ale". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "aire" and "ale" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #276,885 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aire" and "ale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ale vs alió". 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 #276,885 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list