actevsayeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: acte is a noun, aye is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“acte” is a noun and “aye” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,353
“acte” frequency rank
#31,835
“aye” frequency rank
33188
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acte aye
Definition Résultat d’une action, opération accomplie. Première personne du singulier du subjonctif présent du verbe avoir.

Where the eye mixes acte and aye

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
acte
3 ch
aye

Visual trap between acte and aye

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: acte is \akt\ while aye is \ɛ\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33188, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acte is recorded at frequency rank #1,353, classified as anoun, pronounced \akt\. aye is at rank #31,835, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ\.

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 33188, this pair ranks #292,297 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acte vs aye

Shared letters: ae. Private to "acte": ct. Private to "aye": y.

"acte" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "aye" · 3 letters · shape VVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acteaccte · acet · actte · atce · cate

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "acte" and "aye" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acte" is a noun and "aye" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "acte" or "aye" show up more?
"acte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,353 in our French list, against #31,835 for "aye". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "acte" and "aye" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #292,297 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acte" and "aye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aves vs aye". 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 #292,297 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