augurevsaugusteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#19,747
“augure” frequency rank
#5,950
“auguste” frequency rank
25697
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature augure auguste
Definition Présage par lequel on juge de l’avenir. Chez les Romains, il se disait des signes que les augures tiraient de l’observation du vol des oiseaux. Aujourd’hui il se dit de tout ce qui peut faire deviner l’avenir. Qui est imposant, respectable, digne de vénération.

Where the eye mixes augure and auguste

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
augure
7 ch
auguste

Look-alike desk: augure vs auguste

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: augure is \o.ɡyʁ\ while auguste is \o.ɡyst\. 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 25697, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

augure is recorded at frequency rank #19,747, classified as anoun, pronounced \o.ɡyʁ\. auguste is at rank #5,950, tagged as anadj, pronounced \o.ɡyst\.

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 25697, this pair ranks #339,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of augure vs auguste

Shared letters: aegu. Private to "augure": r. Private to "auguste": st.

"augure" · 6 letters · shape VVCVCV  ·  "auguste" · 7 letters · shape VVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • augureaguure · auggure · augrue · auguer · augurre · auugre · uagure
  • augusteaguuste · augguste · augsute · auguset · augusste · augustte · augutse · auugste

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "augure" for "auguste" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "augure" is a noun and "auguste" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "augure" or "auguste" show up more?
"auguste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,950 in our French list, against #19,747 for "augure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "augure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "auguste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #339,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "augure" and "auguste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "augure vs Aure". 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 #339,380 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