agilevsailéWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#21,229
“agile” frequency rank
#38,126
“ailé” frequency rank
59355
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agile ailé
Definition Qui a des facilités pour agir ou se mouvoir, dispos, léger, souple. Qui possède des ailes.

Where the eye mixes agile and ailé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. agile runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against ailé's 4 (VVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
agile
4 ch
ailé

Visual trap between agile and ailé

A purely visual mix-up. agile (\a.ʒil\) and ailé (\ɛ.le\) 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 59355, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agile is recorded at frequency rank #21,229, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ʒil\. ailé is at rank #38,126, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ.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 59355, this pair ranks #103,623 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of agile vs ailé

Shared letters: ail. Private to "agile": eg. Private to "ailé": é.

"agile" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "ailé" · 4 letters · shape VVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • agile ← aggile · agiel · agille · aglie · gaile

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "agile" and "ailé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\a.ʒil\ versus \ɛ.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "agile" or "ailé"?
"agile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,229 in our French list, against #38,126 for "ailé". 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 "agile" and "ailé" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "agile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ailé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,623 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "agile" and "ailé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ailé vs Aure". 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 #103,623 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