sacréesvssecretsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“sacrées” and “secrets” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,811
“sacrées” frequency rank
#3,037
“secrets” frequency rank
20848
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sacrées secrets
Definition Féminin pluriel de sacré. Masculin pluriel de secret.

Where the eye mixes sacrées and secrets

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
sacrées
7 ch
secrets

Visual trap between sacrées and secrets

A purely visual mix-up. sacrées (\sa.kʁe\) and secrets (\sə.kʁɛ\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20848, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sacrées is recorded at frequency rank #17,811, classified as anadj, pronounced \sa.kʁe\. secrets is at rank #3,037, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sə.kʁɛ\.

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 20848, this pair ranks #366,171 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sacrées vs secrets

Shared letters: cers. Private to "sacrées": . Private to "secrets": t.

"sacrées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "secrets" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • secretsescrets · scerets · seccrets · secerts · secrest · secretss · secretts · secrrets

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sacrées" and "secrets" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sa.kʁe\ versus \sə.kʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "sacrées" vs "secrets" - which ranks higher?
"secrets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,037 in our French list, against #17,811 for "sacrées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sacrées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "secrets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #366,171 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sacrées" and "secrets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sacrées vs Sardes". 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 #366,171 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list