agrafesvsarabesTell them apart

Quick tell: agrafes is a noun, arabes is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“agrafes” is a noun and “arabes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,721
“agrafes” frequency rank
#2,407
“arabes” frequency rank
45128
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agrafes arabes
Definition Pluriel de agrafe. Pluriel de arabe.

Where the eye mixes agrafes and arabes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. agrafes runs 7 letters (VCCVCVC) against arabes's 6 (VCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
agrafes
6 ch
arabes

Visual trap between agrafes and arabes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: agrafes is \a.ɡʁaf\ while arabes is \a.ʁab\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45128, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agrafes is recorded at frequency rank #42,721, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ɡʁaf\. arabes is at rank #2,407, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁab\.

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 45128, this pair ranks #205,170 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of agrafes vs arabes

Shared letters: aers. Private to "agrafes": fg. Private to "arabes": b.

"agrafes" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "arabes" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • agrafes ← agarfes · aggrafes · agraefs · agrafess · agraffes · agrafse · agrfaes · agrrafes
  • arabes ← aarbes · arabbes · arabess · arabse · araebs · arbaes · arrabes · raabes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "agrafes" for "arabes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "agrafes" is a noun and "arabes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "agrafes" vs "arabes" - which ranks higher?
"arabes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,407 in our French list, against #42,721 for "agrafes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "agrafes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arabes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #205,170 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "agrafes" and "arabes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "agrafe vs agrafes". 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 #205,170 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