amphivsappuiWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#27,688
“amphi” frequency rank
#2,755
“appui” frequency rank
30443
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amphi appui
Definition Amphithéâtre, dans l’enseignement supérieur. Salle de cours magistral. Ce qui sert à soutenir une chose ou une personne pour l’empêcher de tomber, de chanceler, etc.

Where the eye mixes amphi and appui

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

5 ch
amphi
5 ch
appui

Why the eye confuses amphi with appui

A purely visual mix-up. amphi (\ɑ̃.fi\) and appui (\a.pɥi\) 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 30443, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amphi is recorded at frequency rank #27,688, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.fi\. appui is at rank #2,755, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.pɥi\.

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 30443, this pair ranks #310,300 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of amphi vs appui

Shared letters: aip. Private to "amphi": hm. Private to "appui": u.

"amphi" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "appui" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • amphiamhpi · ammphi · amphhi · ampih · ampphi · apmhi · maphi
  • appuiappiu · apui · apupi · papui

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "amphi" and "appui" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɑ̃.fi\ versus \a.pɥi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "amphi" vs "appui" - which ranks higher?
"appui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,755 in our French list, against #27,688 for "amphi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "amphi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #310,300 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amphi" and "appui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amphi vs ampli". 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 #310,300 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