Which to use
“acre” and “ale” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,433
- “acre” frequency rank
- #25,879
- “ale” frequency rank
- 54312
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | acre | ale |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Bière blonde anglaise légère, fabriquée avec du malt peu torréfié. |
Where the eye mixes acre and ale
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: acre vs ale
A purely visual mix-up. acre (\akʁ\) and ale (\al\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54312, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
acre is recorded at frequency rank #28,433, classified as anoun, pronounced \akʁ\. ale is at rank #25,879, tagged as anoun, pronounced \al\.
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 54312, this pair ranks #134,872 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of acre vs ale
Shared letters: ae. Private to "acre": cr. Private to "ale": l.
"acre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "ale" · 3 letters · shape VCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- acre ← accre · acrre
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "acre" and "ale" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "acre" vs "ale" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "acre" and "ale" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "acre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #134,872 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "acre" and "ale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acre vs aur". 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 #134,872 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.