Which to use
“censée” and “sensée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #8,511
- “censée” frequency rank
- #21,769
- “sensée” frequency rank
- 30280
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | censée | sensée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de censé. | Féminin singulier de sensé. |
Same sound, different letters: censée vs sensée
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. censée and sensée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Ear matches; page differs - censée and sensée
This is the hard kind. censée 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 a single letter - c in “censée” becomes s in “sensée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30280, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
censée is recorded at frequency rank #8,511, 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 30280, this pair ranks #311,396 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of censée vs sensée
Shared letters: ensé. Private to "censée": c. Private to "sensée": -.
"censée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "sensée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "censée" and "sensée" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "censée" or "sensée"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "censée" / "sensée". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "censée" 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 #311,396 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "censée" and "sensée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "semée vs sensée". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #311,396 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.