allervsallôWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: aller is a verb, allô is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aller” is a verb and “allô” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#201
“aller” frequency rank
#19,439
“allô” frequency rank
19640
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aller allô
Definition Se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit. Mot phatique employé pour établir ou rétablir la conversation téléphonique avec son interlocuteur.

Where the eye mixes aller and allô

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

5 ch
aller
4 ch
allô

Visual trap between aller and allô

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: aller is \a.le\ while allô is \a.lo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19640, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aller is recorded at frequency rank #201, classified as averb, pronounced \a.le\. allô is at rank #19,439, tagged as anintj, pronounced \a.lo\.

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 19640, this pair ranks #372,284 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aller vs allô

Shared letters: al. Private to "aller": er. Private to "allô": ô.

"aller" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "allô" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alleralelr · aler · allerr · allre · laler

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aller" for "allô" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aller" is a verb and "allô" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "aller" vs "allô" - which ranks higher?
"aller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #201 in our French list, against #19,439 for "allô". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "allô" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #372,284 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aller" and "allô" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "allô vs aol". 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 #372,284 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