sacrervssacrésWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sacrer is a verb, sacrés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sacrer” is a verb and “sacrés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,171
“sacrer” frequency rank
#10,070
“sacrés” frequency rank
54241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sacrer sacrés
Definition Conférer un caractère sacré par le moyen de certaines cérémonies religieuses. Masculin pluriel de sacré.

Same sound, different letters: sacrer vs sacrés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. sacrer and sacrés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
sacrer
6 ch
sacrés

Homophone desk: sacrer vs sacrés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: sacrer and sacrés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \sa.kʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sacrer is recorded at frequency rank #44,171, classified as averb, pronounced \sa.kʁe\. sacrés is at rank #10,070, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sa.kʁe\.

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 54241, this pair ranks #135,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sacrer vs sacrés

Shared letters: acrs. Private to "sacrer": e. Private to "sacrés": é.

"sacrer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sacrés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sacrer ← ascrer · saccrer · sacerr · sacrerr · sacrre · sacrrer · sarcer · scarer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sacrer" and "sacrés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sacrer" is a verb and "sacrés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sacrer" or "sacrés"?
"sacrés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,070 in our French list, against #44,171 for "sacrer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "sacrer" / "sacrés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sacrer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sacrés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #135,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sacrer" and "sacrés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sacra vs sacrer". 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 #135,320 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