auraitvsaurayWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: aurait is a verb, auray is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aurait” is a verb and “auray” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#241
“aurait” frequency rank
#38,659
“auray” frequency rank
38900
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aurait auray
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du conditionnel présent de avoir. Bloc de pierre, pièce de bois, mauvais canon, etc., pour amarrer.

Letter map: aurait vs auray

Shared letters muted; letters that set aurait and auray apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. aurait runs 6 letters (VVCVVC) against auray's 5 (VVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
aurait
5 ch
auray

Grammar separator: aurait vs auray

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: aurait is averb and aurayanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38900, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aurait is recorded at frequency rank #241, classified as averb, pronounced \o.ʁɛ\. auray is at rank #38,659, tagged as anoun.

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 38900, this pair ranks #251,997 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aurait vs auray

Shared letters: aru. Private to "aurait": it. Private to "auray": y.

"aurait" · 6 letters · shape VVCVVC  ·  "auray" · 5 letters · shape VVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • auraitaruait · auarit · auraitt · aurati · auriat · aurrait · uarait
  • aurayaruay · auary · aurayy · aurray · aurya · uaray

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "aurait" and "auray" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aurait" is a verb and "auray" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "aurait" or "auray"?
"aurait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #241 in our French list, against #38,659 for "auray". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "aurait" and "auray".

  • Full dictionary entry for "aurait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "auray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #251,997 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aurait" and "auray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aur vs auray". 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 #251,997 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