saisvssawnWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#44,467
“sais” frequency rank
#43,902
“sawn” frequency rank
88369
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sais sawn
Definition A groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses. past participle of saw

Letter map: sais vs sawn

Shared letters muted; letters that set sais and sawn apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sais (CVVC) and sawn (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
sais
4 ch
sawn

Grammar separator: sais vs sawn

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sais is anoun and sawnaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88369, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sais is recorded at frequency rank #44,467, classified as anoun, pronounced /saɪs/. sawn is at rank #43,902, tagged as averb.

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 88369, this pair ranks #6,445 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sais vs sawn

Shared letters: as. Private to "sais": i. Private to "sawn": nw.

"sais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "sawn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sais ← asis · saiss · sasi · sias · ssais
  • sawn ← aswn · sanw · sawwn · ssawn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sais" for "sawn" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sais" is a noun and "sawn" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "sais" or "sawn" show up more?
"sawn" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,902 in our English list, against #44,467 for "sais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sais" and "sawn".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sawn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,445 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sais" and "sawn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sais vs suds". 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 #6,445 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list