allervsarmerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#201
“aller” frequency rank
#15,304
“armer” frequency rank
15505
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aller armer
Definition Se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit. Pourvoir d’armes ; équiper.

Where the eye mixes aller and armer

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

5 ch
aller
5 ch
armer

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. aller (\a.le\) and armer (\aʁ.me\) 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 15505, 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\. armer is at rank #15,304, tagged as averb, pronounced \aʁ.me\.

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 15505, this pair ranks #392,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aller vs armer

Shared letters: aer. Private to "aller": l. Private to "armer": m.

"aller" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "armer" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • alleralelr · aler · allerr · allre · laler
  • armeramrer · aremr · armerr · armmer · armre · arrmer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "aller" and "armer" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\a.le\ versus \aʁ.me\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "aller" or "armer"?
"aller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #201 in our French list, against #15,304 for "armer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "aller" and "armer". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "armer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,048 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aller" and "armer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ahmet vs armer". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list