Which to use
“censure” and “century” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,218
- “censure” frequency rank
- #16,316
- “century” frequency rank
- 21534
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | censure | century |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Examen qu’un gouvernement fait faire des livres, des journaux, des pièces de théâtre, etc., avant d’en permettre la publication ou la représentation. | Siècle (période de cent ans) |
Where the eye mixes censure and century
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. censure and century follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between censure and century
A purely visual mix-up. censure (\sɑ̃.syʁ\) and century (\ˈsɛn.tʃə.ɹi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21534, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
censure is recorded at frequency rank #5,218, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɑ̃.syʁ\. century is at rank #16,316, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈsɛn.tʃə.ɹi\.
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 21534, this pair ranks #362,679 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of censure vs century
Shared letters: cenru. Private to "censure": s. Private to "century": ty.
"censure" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "century" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "censure" and "century" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "censure" or "century" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "censure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "century" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #362,679 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "censure" and "century" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "centers vs century". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #362,679 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.