aravsawayWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ara is a noun, away is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#29,225
“ara” frequency rank
#20,367
“away” frequency rank
49592
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ara away
Definition Nom normalisé donné à six genres de grands oiseaux de la famille des psittacidés (e.g. "vrais" perroquets, amazones, etc.), à longue queue, au plumage très coloré et aux patrons complexes, dont l’intelligence et les aptitudes vocales sont supérieures à celles de la plupart des autres membres de l’ordre des psittaciformes, et qui fréquentent les forêts humides de l'écozone néotropicale, et dont plusieurs espèces sont présentement menacées de disparition (genres principaux: Ara, Anodorhynchus, Propyrrhura, etc.). Parti.

Where the eye mixes ara and away

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ara
4 ch
away

Look-alike desk: ara vs away

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ara is \a.ʁa\ while away is \ə.ˈweɪ\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49592, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ara is recorded at frequency rank #29,225, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ʁa\. away is at rank #20,367, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ə.ˈweɪ\.

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 49592, this pair ranks #169,386 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ara vs away

Shared letters: a. Private to "ara": r. Private to "away": wy.

"ara" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "away" · 4 letters · shape VCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • awayaawy · awayy · awway · awya · waay

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ara" and "away" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ara" is a noun and "away" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ara" or "away"?
"away" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,367 in our French list, against #29,225 for "ara". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "ara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "away" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #169,386 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ara" and "away" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ara vs avéra". 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 #169,386 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