savoir

/\sa.vwaʁ\/ verb

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#251

in French word usage

Misspellings

8

tracked variants

Confusables

15

similar word pairs

savoir is aFrenchverb. It means: Appréhender par l’esprit ou la connaissance ; connaître de façon certaine. Pronounced \sa.vwaʁ\. It ranks #251 in French word frequency. Often confused with soir and savon.

Key facts for savoir
PropertyValue
Headwordsavoir
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\sa.vwaʁ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#251
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs15
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of savoir in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for savoir is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sa.vwaʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #251 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for savoir, with forms such as "asvoir", "saovir", and "savior". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 15 confusable-pair relationships, "soir", "savon", "sévir", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is savoir, spelled S-A-V-O-I-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Appréhender par l’esprit ou la connaissance ; connaître de façon certaine.
  2. 2
    Avoir dans la mémoire.
  3. 3
    Posséder quelque science, quelque art, être instruit, habile en quelque profession, en quelque exercice.
  4. 4
    Avoir l’esprit orné et rempli de choses utiles.
  5. 5
    Être accoutumé ou exercé à une chose, la bien faire.
  6. 6
    Avoir le pouvoir, la force, le moyen, l’adresse, l’habileté de faire quelque chose.
  7. 7
    Pouvoir.
  8. 8
    Pouvoir
  9. 9
    Apprendre, être instruit ou être informé de quelque chose.
  10. 10
    Être informé qu’une personne ou qu’une chose existe ou peut être trouvée.
  11. 11
    Connaître, reconnaître, distinguer.
  12. 12
    À savoir ; précède une explicitation par une énumération.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: asvoir,saovir,savior,savoirr,savori,savvoir,ssavoir,svaoir

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for savoir

Misspelling Variants of "savoir"

asvoir6saovir6savior6savoirr7savori6savvoir7ssavoir7svaoir6
Misspelling Variants of "savoir"

Frequency rank: #251 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "savoir"?
"savoir" is spelled S-A-V-O-I-R. The IPA pronunciation is \sa.vwaʁ\.
What does "savoir" mean?
As a verb, "savoir" means: Appréhender par l’esprit ou la connaissance ; connaître de façon certaine.
What words are commonly confused with "savoir"?
"savoir" is commonly confused with "soir", "savon", "sévir". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "savoir"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "savoir" is \sa.vwaʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "savoir" come from?
"savoir" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.