ASCIIvsasiConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#46,585
“ASCII” frequency rank
#44,870
“asi” frequency rank
91455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ASCII asi
Definition Norme longtemps utilisée pour le codage des caractères alphanumériques en informatique. À l’origine, utilisant sept bits, l’ASCII permet de représenter 128 caractères, numérotés de 0 à 127 et représentant 32 caractères de contrôle, l'espace et 95 caractères graphiques. L’ASCII dit « étendu » utilise le huitième bit de l’octet pour coder les caractères vernaculaires de 128 à 255, mais existe en plusieurs versions mutuellement incompatibles. L'UTF-8 est une forme d’ASCII dit « étendu » qui peut représenter chacun de ces caractères (voir Unicode). Sorte de thé fabriqué à partir des feuilles et des tiges d'une espèce de houx (l'apalachine, Ilex vomitoria) et que les Cherokees appelaient aussi "boisson noire" et qui servait de breuvage rituel.

Where the eye mixes ASCII and asi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. ASCII runs 5 letters (VCCVV) against asi's 3 (VCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
ASCII
3 ch
asi

Why the eye confuses ASCII with asi

A purely visual mix-up. ASCII (\as.ki\) and asi (\a.si\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ASCII is recorded at frequency rank #46,585, classified as anoun, pronounced \as.ki\. asi is at rank #44,870, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.si\.

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 91455, this pair ranks #3,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ASCII vs asi

Shared letters: ais. Private to "ASCII": c. Private to "asi": -.

"ASCII" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV  ·  "asi" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ASCII ← acsii · asccii · asci · asici · asscii · sacii

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ASCII" and "asi" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\as.ki\ versus \a.si\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "ASCII" or "asi"?
"asi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,870 in our French list, against #46,585 for "ASCII". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "ASCII" and "asi" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ASCII" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "asi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ASCII" and "asi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "asi vs aur". 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 #3,830 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