acrevsarrêtWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#28,433
“acre” frequency rank
#1,316
“arrêt” frequency rank
29749
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acre arrêt
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. Action de s’arrêter ou état d’être arrêté.

Where the eye mixes acre and arrêt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. acre runs 4 letters (VCCV) against arrêt's 5 (VCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
acre
5 ch
arrêt

Look-alike desk: acre vs arrêt

A purely visual mix-up. acre (\akʁ\) and arrêt (\a.ʁɛ\) 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 29749, 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\. arrêt is at rank #1,316, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.ʁɛ\.

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 29749, this pair ranks #314,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acre vs arrêt

Shared letters: ar. Private to "acre": ce. Private to "arrêt": .

"acre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "arrêt" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acreaccre · acrre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "acre" and "arrêt" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\akʁ\ versus \a.ʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "acre" or "arrêt" show up more?
"arrêt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,316 in our French list, against #28,433 for "acre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "acre" and "arrêt" 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 "arrêt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #314,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acre" and "arrêt" 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 #314,736 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