agirvsalimWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: agir is a verb, alim is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“agir” is a verb and “alim” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,760
“agir” frequency rank
#40,112
“alim” frequency rank
41872
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agir alim
Definition Faire quelque chose. Alimentation.

Where the eye mixes agir and alim

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. agir and alim follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
agir
4 ch
alim

Look-alike desk: agir vs alim

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: agir is \a.ʒiʁ\ while alim is \a.lim\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41872, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agir is recorded at frequency rank #1,760, classified as averb, pronounced \a.ʒiʁ\. alim is at rank #40,112, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.lim\.

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 41872, this pair ranks #229,898 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of agir vs alim

Shared letters: ai. Private to "agir": gr. Private to "alim": lm.

"agir" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "alim" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • agir ← aggir · agirr · aigr · gair
  • alim ← ailm · alimm · allim · almi

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "agir" and "alim" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "agir" is a verb and "alim" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "agir" vs "alim" - which ranks higher?
"agir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,760 in our French list, against #40,112 for "alim". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "agir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alim" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,898 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "agir" and "alim" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alim vs alizé". 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 #229,898 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