aus vs ax, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“aus” is a preposition and “ax” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,401
“aus” frequency rank: #33,561
“ax” frequency rank: 51962
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	aus	ax
Definition	De (désigne la provenance).	Hache, cognée.

Letter map: aus vs ax

Shared letters muted; letters that set aus and ax apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

aus

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for aus / ax

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: aus is apreposition and axanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51962, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aus is recorded at frequency rank #18,401, classified as aprep, pronounced \aʊ̯s\. ax is at rank #33,561, 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 51962, this pair ranks #151,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of aus vs ax

Shared letters: a. Private to "aus": su. Private to "ax": x.

"aus" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "ax" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aus" for "ax" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aus" is a preposition and "ax" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "aus" vs "ax" - which ranks higher?

"aus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,401 in our French list, against #33,561 for "ax". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "aus" vs "ax" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "aus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ax" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #151,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"aus" and "ax" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aur vs ax". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #151,144 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.