airvsazWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#341
“air” frequency rank
#23,772
“az” frequency rank
24113
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature air az
Definition Mélange gazeux constituant l’atmosphère. Première lettre de l’alphabet glagolitique, Ⰰ.

Where the eye mixes air and az

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
air
2 ch
az

Look-alike desk: air vs az

A purely visual mix-up. air (\ɛʁ\) and az (\az\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24113, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

air is recorded at frequency rank #341, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛʁ\. az is at rank #23,772, tagged as anoun, pronounced \az\.

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 24113, this pair ranks #348,530 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of air vs az

Shared letters: a. Private to "air": ir. Private to "az": z.

"air" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "az" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "air" for "az" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɛʁ\ versus \az\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "air" vs "az" - which ranks higher?
"air" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #341 in our French list, against #23,772 for "az". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "air" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "az" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #348,530 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "air" and "az" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aur vs az". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #348,530 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