Which to use
“ahh” is a typographic variant and “arc” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #19,733
- “ahh” frequency rank
- #3,180
- “arc” frequency rank
- 22913
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ahh | arc |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Orthographe par contrainte typographique par système h de aĥ. | Arme de trait servant à lancer des flèches, formée d’une branche de bois ou d’une verge, soit de métal, soit d’autre matière, courbée avec effort au moyen d’une corde qui s’attache aux deux extrémités. |
Where the eye mixes ahh and arc
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Why the eye confuses ahh with arc
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ahh is \ax\ while arc is \aʁk\. 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 (typographic variant vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22913, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ahh is recorded at frequency rank #19,733, classified as atypographic variant, pronounced \ax\. arc is at rank #3,180, tagged as anoun, pronounced \aʁk\.
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 22913, this pair ranks #355,407 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of ahh vs arc
Shared letters: a. Private to "ahh": h. Private to "arc": cr.
"ahh" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "arc" · 3 letters · shape VCC
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ahh" for "arc" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "ahh" or "arc" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "ahh" and "arc" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ahh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "arc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #355,407 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ahh" and "arc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ahh vs aur". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #355,407 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.