Which to use
“adage” and “agace” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #23,090
- “adage” frequency rank
- #18,638
- “agace” frequency rank
- 41728
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | adage | agace |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | En danse classique, suite de mouvements amples exécutés sur un tempo lent. | Nom vulgaire de la pie bavarde dans plusieurs parties de la France ou de la Belgique. On trouve les graphies agace, agasse, agache. |
Where the eye mixes adage and agace
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. adage and agace follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between adage and agace
A purely visual mix-up. adage (\a.daʒ\) and agace (\a.ɡas\) 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 41728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
adage is recorded at frequency rank #23,090, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.daʒ\. agace is at rank #18,638, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.ɡas\.
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 41728, this pair ranks #230,943 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of adage vs agace
Shared letters: aeg. Private to "adage": d. Private to "agace": c.
"adage" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV · "agace" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "adage" and "agace" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "adage" vs "agace" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "adage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "agace" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #230,943 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "adage" and "agace" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adage vs adulé". 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 #230,943 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.