saignévssignaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,358
“saigné” frequency rank
#30,371
“signa” frequency rank
60729
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saigné signa
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de saigner. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de signer.

Where the eye mixes saigné and signa

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. saigné runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against signa's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
saigné
5 ch
signa

Why the eye confuses saigné with signa

A purely visual mix-up. saigné (\se.ɲe\) and signa (\si.ɲa\) 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 60729, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saigné is recorded at frequency rank #30,358, classified as averb, pronounced \se.ɲe\. signa is at rank #30,371, tagged as averb, pronounced \si.ɲa\.

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 60729, this pair ranks #96,095 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of saigné vs signa

Shared letters: agins. Private to "saigné": é. Private to "signa": -.

"saigné" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "signa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • signa ← isgna · sgina · sigan · siggna · signna · singa · ssigna

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saigné" and "signa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\se.ɲe\ versus \si.ɲa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "saigné" or "signa" show up more?
"saigné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,358 in our French list, against #30,371 for "signa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "saigné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "signa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #96,095 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saigné" and "signa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "signa vs sind". 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 #96,095 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