AgathavsagatheWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#26,246
“Agatha” frequency rank
#16,539
“agathe” frequency rank
42785
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Agatha agathe
Definition Agathe. Variété de tulipes.

Where the eye mixes Agatha and agathe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Agatha and agathe follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
Agatha
6 ch
agathe

Visual trap between Agatha and agathe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Agatha is \ˈæɡ.ə.θə\ while agathe is \a.ɡat\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “Agatha” becomes e in “agathe”, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Agatha is recorded at frequency rank #26,246, classified as aname, pronounced \ˈæɡ.ə.θə\. agathe is at rank #16,539, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.ɡat\.

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 42785, this pair ranks #222,974 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Agatha vs agathe

Shared letters: aght. Private to "Agatha": -. Private to "agathe": e.

"Agatha" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "agathe" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Agatha ← aagtha · agahta · agatah · agathha · agattha · aggatha · agtaha · gaatha
  • agathe ← aagthe · agahte · agateh · agathhe · agatthe · aggathe · agtahe · gaathe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Agatha" for "agathe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Agatha" is a name and "agathe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Agatha" or "agathe" show up more?
"agathe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,539 in our French list, against #26,246 for "Agatha". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Agatha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "agathe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #222,974 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Agatha" and "agathe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "agacée vs agathe". 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 #222,974 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