aiglevsalléWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#9,110
“aigle” frequency rank
#1,800
“allé” frequency rank
10910
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aigle allé
Definition Oiseau de proie rapace diurne à la vue perçante, au bec crochu à bords tranchants et aux pattes puissantes munies de serres pour saisir leurs proies. Il trompète ou glatit lorsqu’il pousse son cri. Masculin singulier du participe passé du verbe aller.

Where the eye mixes aigle and allé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
aigle
4 ch
allé

Visual trap between aigle and allé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: aigle is \ɛɡl\ while allé is \a.le\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10910, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aigle is recorded at frequency rank #9,110, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛɡl\. allé is at rank #1,800, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.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 10910, this pair ranks #411,191 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aigle vs allé

Shared letters: al. Private to "aigle": egi. Private to "allé": é.

"aigle" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV  ·  "allé" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aigleaigel · aiggle · aiglle · ailge · iagle

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "aigle" and "allé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aigle" is a noun and "allé" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "aigle" or "allé" show up more?
"allé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,800 in our French list, against #9,110 for "aigle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "aigle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "allé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #411,191 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aigle" and "allé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adulé vs aigle". 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 #411,191 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