agentvsavenConfusable pair

Which to use

“agent” and “aven” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,798
“agent” frequency rank
#39,167
“aven” frequency rank
40965
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agent aven
Definition Celui qui est chargé d’une fonction, d’une mission, soit par un gouvernement ou par une administration, soit par un ou plusieurs particuliers. Gouffre naturel à ouverture étroite et généralement verticale, creusé par les eaux d’infiltration, caractéristique des régions karstiques, le plus souvent développées dans les roches calcaires.

Where the eye mixes agent and aven

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

5 ch
agent
4 ch
aven

Look-alike desk: agent vs aven

A purely visual mix-up. agent (\a.ʒɑ̃\) and aven (\a.vɛn\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40965, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agent is recorded at frequency rank #1,798, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ʒɑ̃\. aven is at rank #39,167, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.vɛn\.

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 40965, this pair ranks #236,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of agent vs aven

Shared letters: aen. Private to "agent": gt. Private to "aven": v.

"agent" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC  ·  "aven" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • agentaegnt · agennt · agentt · agetn · aggent · agnet · gaent
  • avenaevn · avenn · avne · avven · vaen

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "agent" for "aven" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.ʒɑ̃\ versus \a.vɛn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "agent" or "aven" show up more?
"agent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,798 in our French list, against #39,167 for "aven". 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 "agent" and "aven" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "agent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aven" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #236,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "agent" and "aven" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aven vs avéra". 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 #236,608 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