sacrésvssagesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#10,070
“sacrés” frequency rank
#8,306
“sages” frequency rank
18376
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sacrés sages
Definition Masculin pluriel de sacré. Pluriel de sage.

Where the eye mixes sacrés and sages

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sacrés runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against sages's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
sacrés
5 ch
sages

Look-alike desk: sacrés vs sages

A purely visual mix-up. sacrés (\sa.kʁe\) and sages (\saʒ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18376, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sacrés is recorded at frequency rank #10,070, classified as anadj, pronounced \sa.kʁe\. sages is at rank #8,306, tagged as anadj, pronounced \saʒ\.

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 18376, this pair ranks #378,644 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sacrés vs sages

Shared letters: as. Private to "sacrés": cré. Private to "sages": eg.

"sacrés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sages" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sages ← asges · saegs · sagess · sagges · sagse · sgaes · ssages

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sacrés" and "sages" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sa.kʁe\ versus \saʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "sacrés" or "sages" show up more?
"sages" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,306 in our French list, against #10,070 for "sacrés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "sacrés" and "sages" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sacrés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sages" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,644 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sacrés" and "sages" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sacrés vs sofres". 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 #378,644 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