aevsauxWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#20,911
“ae” frequency rank
#58
“aux” frequency rank
20969
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ae aux
Definition Graine. Contraction obligatoire de la préposition à et de l'article défini les.

Letter map: ae vs aux

Shared letters muted; letters that set ae and aux apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
ae
3 ch
aux

Role in the sentence - ae and aux

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ae is anoun and auxanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20969, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ae is recorded at frequency rank #20,911, classified as anoun. 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 20969, this pair ranks #365,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ae vs aux

Shared letters: a. Private to "ae": e. Private to "aux": ux.

"ae" · 2 letters · shape VV  ·  "aux" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ae" for "aux" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ae" is a noun and "aux" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ae" or "aux"?
"aux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #58 in our French list, against #20,911 for "ae". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ae" and "aux".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ae" 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 #365,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ae" and "aux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ae vs aves". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #365,549 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