SF

adj

The verdict

“SF” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #15,503) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#15,503
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - De science-fiction, relatif à la science-fiction.

Corpus desk

Index FR-sf · SF · French

SF · rank #15,503 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #15,503
  • LEN-SHORT 2 letters
  • VOW-0 0 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH secrétaires

Nearest frequency peer: secrétaires (-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 « SF »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « SF » 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).

SF vs si
0% similar
SF vs st
0% similar
SF vs su
0% similar

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

Key facts for SF
PropertyValue
HeadwordSF
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
Letters2
Frequency rank#15,503
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « SF »

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

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « secrétaires » (#15,502), « Sidney » (#15,504), « saurez » (#15,501). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « SF » est au #15,503. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for SF is neighbouring look-alikes ("si", "st", …), not just typos; it is anadjective. Frequency #15,503 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Gloss: "De science-fiction, relatif à la science-fiction.".

SF has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "si", "st", "su", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is SF, spelled S-F.

Definition

  1. 1
    De science-fiction, relatif à la science-fiction.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. « C’est l’une des caractéristiques essentielles de l’écriture d’Elia Barceló : à travers l’intrigue et le cadre SF, elle poursuit une réflexion sur l’humain. »

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 "SF"?
"SF" is spelled S-F.
What does "SF" mean?
As an adjective, "SF" means: De science-fiction, relatif à la science-fiction.
What words are commonly confused with "SF"?
"SF" is commonly confused with "si", "st", "su". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "SF" come from?
"SF" 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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list