âgéevsalléWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: âgée is a adjective, allé is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“âgée” is an adjective and “allé” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,357
“âgée” frequency rank
#1,800
“allé” frequency rank
8157
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature âgée allé
Definition Féminin singulier d’âgé. Masculin singulier du participe passé du verbe aller.

Where the eye mixes âgée and allé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. âgée (VCVV) and allé (VCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
âgée
4 ch
allé

Look-alike desk: âgée vs allé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: âgée is \a.ʒe\ while allé is \a.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8157, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

âgée is recorded at frequency rank #6,357, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ʒe\. allé is at rank #1,800, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.le\.

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 8157, this pair ranks #420,935 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of âgée vs allé

Shared letters: é. Private to "âgée": egâ. Private to "allé": al.

"âgée" · 4 letters · shape VCVV  ·  "allé" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "âgée" for "allé" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "âgée" is an adjective and "allé" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "âgée" or "allé" show up more?
"allé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,800 in our French list, against #6,357 for "âgée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "âgée" and "allé" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "âgée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "allé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #420,935 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "âgée" and "allé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "âgée vs aves". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #420,935 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