akivsathWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: aki is a noun, ath is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aki” is a noun and “ath” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,568
“aki” frequency rank
#31,830
“ath” frequency rank
78398
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aki ath
Definition Nom vernaculaire de Blighia sapida, arbre moyen de la famille des Sapindaceae (Sapindacées), originaire d’Afrique occidentale et cultivé dans les régions tropicales pour son fruit. C’est une espèce proche du litchi. Contraction de la préposition a et de l'article défini eth.

Where the eye mixes aki and ath

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

3 ch
aki
3 ch
ath

Look-alike desk: aki vs ath

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: aki is \a.ki\ while ath is \at\. 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 article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78398, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aki is recorded at frequency rank #46,568, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ki\. ath is at rank #31,830, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \at\.

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 78398, this pair ranks #25,856 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of aki vs ath

Shared letters: a. Private to "aki": ik. Private to "ath": ht.

"aki" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "ath" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aki" for "ath" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aki" is a noun and "ath" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "aki" or "ath" show up more?
"ath" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,830 in our French list, against #46,568 for "aki". 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 "aki" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,856 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aki" and "ath" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aki vs aur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #25,856 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