alonevsanneWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#21,524
“alone” frequency rank
#2,110
“anne” frequency rank
23634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alone anne
Definition Seul, tout seul, solitaire. Mère.

Where the eye mixes alone and anne

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

5 ch
alone
4 ch
anne

Look-alike desk: alone vs anne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: alone is [ə.ˈloʊn] while anne is \ɑn.nɛ\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alone is recorded at frequency rank #21,524, classified as anadj, pronounced [ə.ˈloʊn]. anne is at rank #2,110, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɑn.nɛ\.

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 23634, this pair ranks #351,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of alone vs anne

Shared letters: aen. Private to "alone": lo. Private to "anne": -.

"alone" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "anne" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aloneallone · alnoe · aloen · alonne · aolne · laone
  • anneane · anen · nane

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "alone" and "anne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alone" is an adjective and "anne" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "alone" or "anne" show up more?
"anne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,110 in our French list, against #21,524 for "alone". 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 "alone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "anne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #351,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alone" and "anne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alizé vs alone". 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 #351,320 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