agrégéevsallégéeConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#45,987
“agrégée” frequency rank
#37,166
“allégée” frequency rank
83153
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agrégée allégée
Definition Celle qui a subi avec succès les épreuves d’un concours d’agrégation. Féminin singulier de allégé.

Where the eye mixes agrégée and allégée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. agrégée and allégée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
agrégée
7 ch
allégée

Why the eye confuses agrégée with allégée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: agrégée is \a.ɡʁe.ʒe\ while allégée is \a.le.ʒe\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83153, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agrégée is recorded at frequency rank #45,987, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ɡʁe.ʒe\. allégée is at rank #37,166, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.le.ʒe\.

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 83153, this pair ranks #15,362 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of agrégée vs allégée

Shared letters: aegé. Private to "agrégée": r. Private to "allégée": l.

"agrégée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "allégée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "agrégée" for "allégée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "agrégée" is a noun and "allégée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "agrégée" or "allégée"?
"allégée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,166 in our French list, against #45,987 for "agrégée". 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 "agrégée" and "allégée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "agrégée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "allégée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,362 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "agrégée" and "allégée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "agrégat vs agrégée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #15,362 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