au
French, contraction/o/
au is spelled A-U (2 letters) and appears 6,026 times per million words in written French, the 24th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Au is a French contraction meaning “contraction of à + le, literally “to the, for the, at the”” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
What does au mean in English?
contraction
- 1
contraction of à + le, literally “to the, for the, at the”
Il étudie la musique au conservatoire.
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Langue torricelli parlée en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée (code ISO 639-3 : avt).
symbol: 1. Abréviation pour unité astronomique.
symbol: 1. Abréviation de août.
suffix: 1. Variante de -al ou de -el.
prefix: 1. Préfixe augmentatif qui indique un accroissement, un doublement. S’utilise devant une consonne, sinon, devant une voyelle, on utilise aug- ou aux-.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of au
- ua
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce au?
- /o/
- \o\
- [o]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to au
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is au in French?
au appears 6,026 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).