ailiervsalliéeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“ailier” and “alliée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#12,299
“ailier” frequency rank
#15,083
“alliée” frequency rank
27382
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ailier alliée
Definition Au basket-ball, joueur qui évolue près de la ligne de touche devant, compromis entre la taille et la puissance d"un intérieur ou d'un pivot, et l"agilité et la dextérité d"un meneur ou d"un arrière. Femme ou organisation qui a rejoint une alliance.

Where the eye mixes ailier and alliée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. ailier (VVCVVC) and alliée (VCCVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
ailier
6 ch
alliée

Look-alike desk: ailier vs alliée

A purely visual mix-up. ailier (\ɛ.lje\) and alliée (\a.lje\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27382, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ailier is recorded at frequency rank #12,299, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛ.lje\. alliée is at rank #15,083, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.lje\.

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 27382, this pair ranks #329,341 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ailier vs alliée

Shared letters: aeil. Private to "ailier": r. Private to "alliée": é.

"ailier" · 6 letters · shape VVCVVC  ·  "alliée" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ailier ← aiiler · aileir · ailierr · ailire · aillier · aliier · ialier

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ailier" for "alliée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ.lje\ versus \a.lje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "ailier" vs "alliée" - which ranks higher?
"ailier" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,299 in our French list, against #15,083 for "alliée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "ailier" and "alliée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ailier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alliée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #329,341 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ailier" and "alliée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alizé vs alliée". 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 #329,341 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