are

\aʁ\

/\aʁ\/ noun

The verdict

“are” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,166) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#6,166
frequency rank, French
6,727
“A” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Unité de mesure de surface de terrains, égale à 100 mètres carrés.

Corpus desk

Index FR-are · are · French

are · rank #6,166 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #6,166
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,727
  • PHOTO-FINISH approcher

Nearest frequency peer: approcher (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « are »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « are » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

are vs au
33% similar
are vs As
0% similar
are vs at
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for are
PropertyValue
Headwordare
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\aʁ\
Letters3
Frequency rank#6,166
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « are »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).arese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « approcher » (#6,165), « arrivant » (#6,167), « anneau » (#6,164). Parmi 6,727 lemmes en « A », « are » est au #6,166. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for are is neighbouring look-alikes ("au", "As", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \aʁ\. Frequency #6,166 among 6,727 “A” headwords. Gloss: "Unité de mesure de surface de terrains, égale à 100 mètres carrés.".

Zero misspellings are on record for are in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "au", "As", "at", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is are, spelled A-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Unité de mesure de surface de terrains, égale à 100 mètres carrés.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how are appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Soit 523 jours de terre, appartenant à la mainmorte, ou 1 jour 8 ommées 2, par parcelles ou en mesures métriques 36 ares 50 par parcelles (le jour valant 20 ares 44 et l’ommée 2 ares 0,4.)
  2. Les mesures agraires de Quarré, avant la Révolution (elles persistent aujourd'hui), n'avaient pas de base fixe. Un journal de champ, une « soiture » de pré oscillaient entre vingt-deux et trente-cinq ares de nos mesures métriques.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "are"?
"are" is spelled A-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \aʁ\.
What does "are" mean?
As a noun, "are" means: Unité de mesure de surface de terrains, égale à 100 mètres carrés.
What words are commonly confused with "are"?
"are" is commonly confused with "au", "As", "at". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "are"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "are" is \aʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "are" come from?
"are" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "are", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list