aolvsauxWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: aol is a noun, aux is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aol” is a noun and “aux” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,335
“aol” frequency rank
#58
“aux” frequency rank
48393
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aol aux
Definition Chaux. Contraction obligatoire de la préposition à et de l'article défini les.

Letter map: aol vs aux

Shared letters muted; letters that set aol and aux apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. aol and aux follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
aol
3 ch
aux

Role in the sentence - aol and aux

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: aol is anoun and auxanarticle. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48393, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aol is recorded at frequency rank #48,335, classified as anoun. aux is at rank #58, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \o\.

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 48393, this pair ranks #179,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aol vs aux

Shared letters: a. Private to "aol": lo. Private to "aux": ux.

"aol" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "aux" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aol" for "aux" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aol" is a noun and "aux" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "aol" or "aux" show up more?
"aux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #58 in our French list, against #48,335 for "aol". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "aol" vs "aux" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aol" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #179,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aol" and "aux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aol vs aur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #179,283 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