ase

\az\

/\az\/ noun

The verdict

“ase” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #43,779) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#43,779
frequency rank, French
6,727
“A” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Plante herbacée vivace de la famille des Apiaceae, dont l’espèce la plus connue est l’ase fétide (Ferula assa-foetida).

Corpus desk

Index FR-ase · ase · French

ase · rank #43,779 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #43,779
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,727
  • PHOTO-FINISH artilleurs

Nearest frequency peer: artilleurs (-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 « ase »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « ase » 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).

ase vs au
33% similar
ase vs at
33% similar
ase vs av
33% similar

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

Key facts for ase
PropertyValue
Headwordase
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\az\
Letters3
Frequency rank#43,779
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « ase »

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

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « artilleurs » (#43,778), « assidue » (#43,780), « arrivage » (#43,777). Parmi 6,727 lemmes en « A », « ase » est au #43,779. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ase is neighbouring look-alikes ("au", "at", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \az\. Frequency #43,779 among 6,727 “A” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Zero misspellings are on record for ase in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "au", "at", "av", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is ase, spelled A-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Plante herbacée vivace de la famille des Apiaceae, dont l’espèce la plus connue est l’ase fétide (Ferula assa-foetida).
  2. 2
    Résine tirée de cette plante.
  3. 3
    Nom générique d’une variété de dieux de la mythologie scandinave.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. D’ailleurs, il ne se crée plus de légendes au déclin de ce pratique et positif dix-neuvième siècle, ni en Bretagne, la contrée des farouches korrigans, ni en Écosse, la terre des brownies et des gnomes, ni en Norvège, la patrie des ases, des elfes, des sylphes et des valkyries, ni même en Transylvanie, où le cadre des Carpathes se prête si naturellement à…

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 "ase"?
"ase" is spelled A-S-E. The IPA pronunciation is \az\.
What does "ase" mean?
As a noun, "ase" means: Plante herbacée vivace de la famille des Apiaceae, dont l’espèce la plus connue est l’ase fétide (Ferula assa-foetida).
What words are commonly confused with "ase"?
"ase" is commonly confused with "au", "at", "av". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ase"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ase" is \az\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ase" come from?
"ase" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "ase", 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