avavsavaleTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#19,748
“ava” frequency rank
#17,347
“avale” frequency rank
37095
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ava avale
Definition Kava. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe avaler.

Where the eye mixes ava and avale

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ava
5 ch
avale

Look-alike desk: ava vs avale

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ava is \a.va\ while avale is \a.val\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ava” sits inside “avale”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37095, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ava is recorded at frequency rank #19,748, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.va\. avale is at rank #17,347, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.val\.

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 37095, this pair ranks #264,929 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ava vs avale

Shared letters: av. Private to "ava": -. Private to "avale": el.

"ava" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "avale" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • avaleaavle · avael · avalle · avlae · avvale · vaale

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ava" for "avale" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ava" is a noun and "avale" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ava" or "avale"?
"avale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,347 in our French list, against #19,748 for "ava". 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 "ava" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "avale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,929 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ava" and "avale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ava vs avéra". 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 #264,929 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