alignevsalignentWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#21,230
“aligne” frequency rank
#32,667
“alignent” frequency rank
53897
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aligne alignent
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe aligner. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe aligner.

Same sound, different letters: aligne vs alignent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
aligne
8 ch
alignent

Ear matches; page differs - aligne and alignent

This is the hard kind. aligne and alignent are pronounced identically (\a.liɲ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “aligne” sits inside “alignent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53897, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aligne is recorded at frequency rank #21,230, classified as averb, pronounced \a.liɲ\. alignent is at rank #32,667, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.liɲ\.

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 53897, this pair ranks #137,694 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aligne vs alignent

Shared letters: aegiln. Private to "aligne": -. Private to "alignent": t.

"aligne" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "alignent" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aligneailgne · algine · aligen · aliggne · alignne · alinge · alligne · laigne
  • alignentailgnent · alginent · aligennt · aliggnent · alignennt · alignentt · alignetn · alignnent

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "aligne" and "alignent" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\a.liɲ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "aligne" or "alignent" show up more?
"aligne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,230 in our French list, against #32,667 for "alignent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aligne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alignent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #137,694 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aligne" and "alignent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alignant vs alignent". 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 #137,694 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