aliensvsavionsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#19,735
“aliens” frequency rank
#1,507
“avions” frequency rank
21242
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aliens avions
Definition Pluriel de alien. Pluriel de avion.

Where the eye mixes aliens and avions

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. aliens and avions follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
aliens
6 ch
avions

Visual trap between aliens and avions

A purely visual mix-up. aliens (\a.ljɛn\) and avions (\a.vjɔ̃\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21242, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aliens is recorded at frequency rank #19,735, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ljɛn\. avions is at rank #1,507, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.vjɔ̃\.

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 21242, this pair ranks #364,184 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aliens vs avions

Shared letters: ains. Private to "aliens": el. Private to "avions": ov.

"aliens" · 6 letters · shape VCVVCC  ·  "avions" · 6 letters · shape VCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aliens ← ailens · aleins · alienns · alienss · aliesn · alines · alliens · laiens
  • avions ← aivons · avinos · avionns · avionss · aviosn · avoins · avvions · vaions

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "aliens" and "avions" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\a.ljɛn\ versus \a.vjɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "aliens" or "avions"?
"avions" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,507 in our French list, against #19,735 for "aliens". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "aliens" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "avions" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #364,184 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aliens" and "avions" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aliens vs aryens". 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 #364,184 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