alevsasileWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#25,879
“ale” frequency rank
#5,007
“asile” frequency rank
30886
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ale asile
Definition Bière blonde anglaise légère, fabriquée avec du malt peu torréfié. Privilège d’inviolabilité accordé à certaines personnes et à certains lieux chez les anciens.

Where the eye mixes ale and asile

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ale
5 ch
asile

Look-alike desk: ale vs asile

A purely visual mix-up. ale (\al\) and asile (\a.zil\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30886, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ale is recorded at frequency rank #25,879, classified as anoun, pronounced \al\. asile is at rank #5,007, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.zil\.

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 30886, this pair ranks #307,374 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ale vs asile

Shared letters: ael. Private to "ale": -. Private to "asile": is.

"ale" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "asile" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • asileaisle · asiel · asille · aslie · assile · saile

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ale" and "asile" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\al\ versus \a.zil\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "ale" vs "asile" - which ranks higher?
"asile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,007 in our French list, against #25,879 for "ale". 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 "ale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "asile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #307,374 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ale" and "asile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ale vs aves". 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 #307,374 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