say

\seɪ\

/\seɪ\/ verb

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“say” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #12,668) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#12,668
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Dire.

Corpus desk

Index FR-say · say · French

say · rank #12,668 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #12,668
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH réunissent

Nearest frequency peer: réunissent (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « say »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « say » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

say vs se
33% similar
say vs si
33% similar
say vs st
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for say
PropertyValue
Headwordsay
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\seɪ\
Letters3
Frequency rank#12,668
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « say »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).sayse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « réunissent » (#12,667), « secrètement » (#12,669), « seigneurie » (#12,670). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « say » est au #12,668. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for say is neighbouring look-alikes ("se", "si", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced \seɪ\. Frequency #12,668 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Gloss: "Dire.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for say in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "se", "si", "st", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is say, spelled S-A-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Dire.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how say appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. When one list occurs inside another the inner list is said to be nested inside the outer list.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "say"?
"say" is spelled S-A-Y. The IPA pronunciation is \seɪ\.
What does "say" mean?
As a verb, "say" means: Dire.
What words are commonly confused with "say"?
"say" is commonly confused with "se", "si", "st". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "say"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "say" is \seɪ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "say" come from?
"say" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "say", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

toc#12,684pet#12,638lus#12,613has#12,589

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list