Which to use
“censé” and “sensée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,595
- “censé” frequency rank
- #21,769
- “sensée” frequency rank
- 25364
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | censé | sensée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Supposé, réputé, considéré (comme). | Féminin singulier de sensé. |
Same sound, different letters: censé vs sensée
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. censé runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against sensée's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - censé and sensée
This is the hard kind. censé and sensée are pronounced identically (\sɑ̃.se\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25364, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
censé is recorded at frequency rank #3,595, classified as anadj, pronounced \sɑ̃.se\. sensée is at rank #21,769, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɑ̃.se\.
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 25364, this pair ranks #341,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of censé vs sensée
Shared letters: ensé. Private to "censé": c. Private to "sensée": -.
"censé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "sensée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "censé" and "sensée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "censé" or "sensée" show up more?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "censé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sensée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #341,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "censé" and "sensée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "semée vs sensée". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #341,299 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.