arevsaveuConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#6,166
“are” frequency rank
#11,716
“aveu” frequency rank
17882
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature are aveu
Definition Unité de mesure de surface de terrains, égale à 100 mètres carrés. Déclaration verbale ou écrite par laquelle on reconnaît avoir fait ou dit quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes are and aveu

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

3 ch
are
4 ch
aveu

Why the eye confuses are with aveu

A purely visual mix-up. are (\aʁ\) and aveu (\a.vø\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17882, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

are is recorded at frequency rank #6,166, classified as anoun, pronounced \aʁ\. aveu is at rank #11,716, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.vø\.

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 17882, this pair ranks #380,993 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of are vs aveu

Shared letters: ae. Private to "are": r. Private to "aveu": uv.

"are" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "aveu" · 4 letters · shape VCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aveuaevu · avue · avveu

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "are" for "aveu" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\aʁ\ versus \a.vø\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "are" vs "aveu" - which ranks higher?
"are" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,166 in our French list, against #11,716 for "aveu". 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 "are" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aveu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #380,993 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "are" and "aveu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "avéra vs aveu". 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 #380,993 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