alcevsaliveWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: alce is a noun, alive is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“alce” is a noun and “alive” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,936
“alce” frequency rank
#30,325
“alive” frequency rank
68261
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alce alive
Definition (Alces alces) Especie de mamífero artiodáctilo de la familia de los cérvidos. Habitante original de los bosques nórdicos de Europa y Asia. Es cazado especialmente por su carne, la piel y los huesos, así como por deporte. Pueden pesar de 350 hasta 450 kg y tener una altura de 1,50 a 2,15 m. La diferenciación de machos y hembras solo es notada en la falta de astas ya que sus alturas son relativamente iguales. Vivo.

Where the eye mixes alce and alive

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. alce runs 4 letters (VCCV) against alive's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
alce
5 ch
alive

Visual trap between alce and alive

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: alce is [ˈalse] while alive is /əˈlaɪv/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68261, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alce is recorded at frequency rank #37,936, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈalse]. alive is at rank #30,325, tagged as anadj, pronounced /əˈlaɪv/.

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 68261, this pair ranks #34,969 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of alce vs alive

Shared letters: ael. Private to "alce": c. Private to "alive": iv.

"alce" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "alive" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alce ← acle · alcce · alec · allce · alse · lace
  • alive ← ailve · alibe · aliev · alivve · allive · alvie · laive

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "alce" for "alive" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alce" is a noun and "alive" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "alce" or "alive" show up more?
"alive" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,325 in our Spanish list, against #37,936 for "alce". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "alce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,969 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alce" and "alive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alce 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 #34,969 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