AdèlevsasileConfusable pair

Quick tell: Adèle is a name, asile is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Adèle” is a name and “asile” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,512
“Adèle” frequency rank
#5,007
“asile” frequency rank
17519
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Adèle asile
Definition Prénom féminin français. Privilège d’inviolabilité accordé à certaines personnes et à certains lieux chez les anciens.

Where the eye mixes Adèle and asile

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

5 ch
Adèle
5 ch
asile

Why the eye confuses Adèle with asile

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Adèle is \a.dɛl\ while asile is \a.zil\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Adèle is recorded at frequency rank #12,512, classified as aname, pronounced \a.dɛl\. asile is at rank #5,007, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.zil\.

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 17519, this pair ranks #382,770 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Adèle vs asile

Shared letters: ael. Private to "Adèle": . Private to "asile": is.

"Adèle" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "asile" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • asileaisle · asiel · asille · aslie · assile · saile

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Adèle" for "asile" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Adèle" is a name and "asile" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Adèle" or "asile" show up more?
"asile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,007 in our French list, against #12,512 for "Adèle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Adèle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "asile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #382,770 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Adèle" and "asile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Adèle 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 #382,770 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