allvsarcWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: all is a adjective, arc is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“all” is an adjective and “arc” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,589
“all” frequency rank
#3,180
“arc” frequency rank
6769
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature all arc
Definition Tout, tous. Arme de trait servant à lancer des flèches, formée d’une branche de bois ou d’une verge, soit de métal, soit d’autre matière, courbée avec effort au moyen d’une corde qui s’attache aux deux extrémités.

Where the eye mixes all and arc

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

3 ch
all
3 ch
arc

Visual trap between all and arc

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: all is \al\ while arc is \aʁk\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6769, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

all is recorded at frequency rank #3,589, classified as anadj, pronounced \al\. arc is at rank #3,180, tagged as anoun, pronounced \aʁk\.

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 6769, this pair ranks #425,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of all vs arc

Shared letters: a. Private to "all": l. Private to "arc": cr.

"all" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "arc" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "all" and "arc" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "all" is an adjective and "arc" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "all" vs "arc" - which ranks higher?
"arc" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,180 in our French list, against #3,589 for "all". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "all" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #425,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "all" and "arc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "all vs aur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #425,287 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