actusvsautosWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,622
“actus” frequency rank
#18,656
“autos” frequency rank
48278
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature actus autos
Definition Pluriel de actu. Pluriel de auto.

Where the eye mixes actus and autos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
actus
5 ch
autos

Why the eye confuses actus with autos

A purely visual mix-up. actus (\ak.ty\) and autos (\ɔ.to\) 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 48278, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

actus is recorded at frequency rank #29,622, classified as anoun, pronounced \ak.ty\. autos is at rank #18,656, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.to\.

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 48278, this pair ranks #180,186 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of actus vs autos

Shared letters: astu. Private to "actus": c. Private to "autos": o.

"actus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "autos" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • actusactsu · acttus · actuss · acuts · atcus · catus
  • autosatuos · auots · autoss · autso · auttos · uatos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "actus" for "autos" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ak.ty\ versus \ɔ.to\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "actus" vs "autos" - which ranks higher?
"autos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,656 in our French list, against #29,622 for "actus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "actus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "autos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #180,186 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "actus" and "autos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "actus vs Artis". 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 #180,186 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