A8vsauxWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: A8 is a name, aux is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“A8” is a name and “aux” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,797
“A8” frequency rank
#58
“aux” frequency rank
31855
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature A8 aux
Definition Autoroute belge partant de l'ouest de Bruxelles reliant le Hainaut à Tournai. Contraction obligatoire de la préposition à et de l'article défini les.

Where the eye mixes A8 and aux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch
A8
3 ch
aux

Look-alike desk: A8 vs aux

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: A8 is \a ɥit\ while aux is \o\. 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 (name vs article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31855, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

A8 is recorded at frequency rank #31,797, classified as aname, pronounced \a ɥit\. aux is at rank #58, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \o\.

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 31855, this pair ranks #301,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of A8 vs aux

Shared letters: a. Private to "A8": -. Private to "aux": ux.

"A8" · 1 letters · shape V  ·  "aux" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "A8" and "aux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "A8" is a name and "aux" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "A8" or "aux" show up more?
"aux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #58 in our French list, against #31,797 for "A8". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "A8" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #301,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "A8" and "aux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "A8 vs aur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #301,117 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list