ADRvsauxWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ADR is a noun, aux is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ADR” is a noun and “aux” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,414
“ADR” frequency rank
#58
“aux” frequency rank
45472
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ADR aux
Definition Accord relatif au transport international des marchandises dangereuses par route, fixant les conditions d’emballage, d’étiquetage des marchandises dangereuses, ainsi que celles concernant les véhicules utilisés et le transport lui-même. Contraction obligatoire de la préposition à et de l'article défini les.

Where the eye mixes ADR and aux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
ADR
3 ch
aux

Look-alike desk: ADR vs aux

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ADR is \ɑ.de.ɛʁ\ while aux is \o\. 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 (noun vs article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45472, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ADR is recorded at frequency rank #45,414, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ.de.ɛʁ\. aux is at rank #58, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \o\.

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 45472, this pair ranks #202,471 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ADR vs aux

Shared letters: a. Private to "ADR": dr. Private to "aux": ux.

"ADR" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "aux" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ADR" for "aux" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ADR" is a noun and "aux" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ADR" or "aux" show up more?
"aux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #58 in our French list, against #45,414 for "ADR". 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 "ADR" and "aux" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ADR" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #202,471 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ADR" and "aux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ADR vs aur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #202,471 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