saintsvssintConfusable pair

Quick tell: saints is a noun, sint is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“saints” is a noun and “sint” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,398
“saints” frequency rank
#35,277
“sint” frequency rank
40675
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saints sint
Definition Chez saint Paul, ensemble des personnes qui croient en Jésus ressuscité. Leur, se (pronom de réciprocité).

Where the eye mixes saints and sint

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

6 ch
saints
4 ch
sint

Why the eye confuses saints with sint

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: saints is \sɛ̃\ while sint is \sint\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40675, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saints is recorded at frequency rank #5,398, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛ̃\. sint is at rank #35,277, tagged as apron, pronounced \sint\.

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 40675, this pair ranks #238,786 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of saints vs sint

Shared letters: inst. Private to "saints": a. Private to "sint": -.

"saints" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC  ·  "sint" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • saintsasints · sainnts · sainst · saintss · saintts · saitns · sanits · siants
  • sintisnt · sinnt · sintt · sitn · snit · ssint

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saints" and "sint" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "saints" is a noun and "sint" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "saints" or "sint" show up more?
"saints" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,398 in our French list, against #35,277 for "sint". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "saints" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #238,786 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saints" and "sint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sind vs sint". 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 #238,786 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