alegrevsamèreTell them apart

Which to use

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

#36,235
“alegre” frequency rank
#16,544
“amère” frequency rank
52779
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alegre amère
Definition Gai, joyeux. Féminin singulier de amer.

Where the eye mixes alegre and amère

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. alegre runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against amère's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
alegre
5 ch
amère

Visual trap between alegre and amère

A purely visual mix-up. alegre ([aˈle.ɣ̞ɾe]) and amère (\a.mɛʁ\) 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 52779, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alegre is recorded at frequency rank #36,235, classified as anadj, pronounced [aˈle.ɣ̞ɾe]. amère is at rank #16,544, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.mɛʁ\.

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 52779, this pair ranks #145,360 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of alegre vs amère

Shared letters: aer. Private to "alegre": gl. Private to "amère": mè.

"alegre" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "amère" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alegre ← aelgre · aleger · aleggre · alegrre · alerge · algere · allegre · laegre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "alegre" and "amère" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([aˈle.ɣ̞ɾe] versus \a.mɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "alegre" vs "amère" - which ranks higher?
"amère" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,544 in our French list, against #36,235 for "alegre". 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 "alegre" and "amère" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alegre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "amère" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #145,360 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alegre" and "amère" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alegre vs allègue". 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 #145,360 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