Which to use
“able” is a noun and “agile” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #38,623
- “able” frequency rank
- #21,229
- “agile” frequency rank
- 59852
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | able | agile |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Une des espèces de petits poissons osseux d’eau douce comestibles d’Europe, dont les écailles servent à la fabrication des fausses perles. | Qui a des facilités pour agir ou se mouvoir, dispos, léger, souple. |
Where the eye mixes able and agile
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. able runs 4 letters (VCCV) against agile's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: able vs agile
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: able is \abl\ while agile is \a.ʒil\. 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 59852, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
able is recorded at frequency rank #38,623, classified as anoun, pronounced \abl\. agile is at rank #21,229, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ʒil\.
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 59852, this pair ranks #100,850 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of able vs agile
Shared letters: ael. Private to "able": b. Private to "agile": gi.
"able" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "agile" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "able" and "agile" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "able" or "agile"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "able" and "agile" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "able" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "agile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #100,850 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "able" and "agile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "able vs Aure". 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 #100,850 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.