acesvsacreConfusable pair

Which to use

“aces” and “acre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#43,246
“aces” frequency rank
#28,433
“acre” frequency rank
71679
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aces acre
Definition Pluriel de ace. Unité de surface égale à 0,4 hectare ou à 4046,9 mètres carrés, encore utilisée en agriculture et dans divers pays avec des valeurs différentes.

Where the eye mixes aces and acre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. aces (VCVC) and acre (VCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
aces
4 ch
acre

Look-alike desk: aces vs acre

A purely visual mix-up. aces (\ɛs\) and acre (\akʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71679, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aces is recorded at frequency rank #43,246, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛs\. acre is at rank #28,433, tagged as anoun, pronounced \akʁ\.

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 71679, this pair ranks #46,708 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of aces vs acre

Shared letters: ace. Private to "aces": s. Private to "acre": r.

"aces" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "acre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aces" for "acre" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɛs\ versus \akʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "aces" or "acre" show up more?
"acre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,433 in our French list, against #43,246 for "aces". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "aces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,708 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aces" and "acre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aces vs aves". 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 #46,708 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