sakévssamuWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,653
“saké” frequency rank
#20,564
“samu” frequency rank
64217
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saké samu
Definition Vin de riz japonais, produit par fermentation comme la bière, titrant de 14° à 17°. Service d'aide médicale urgente.

Where the eye mixes saké and samu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
saké
4 ch
samu

Look-alike desk: saké vs samu

A purely visual mix-up. saké (\sa.ke\) and samu (\sa.my\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64217, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saké is recorded at frequency rank #43,653, classified as anoun, pronounced \sa.ke\. samu is at rank #20,564, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sa.my\.

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 64217, this pair ranks #78,109 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of saké vs samu

Shared letters: as. Private to "saké": . Private to "samu": mu.

"saké" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "samu" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • samuasmu · sammu · saum · smau · ssamu

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saké" and "samu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sa.ke\ versus \sa.my\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "saké" or "samu"?
"samu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,564 in our French list, against #43,653 for "saké". 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 "saké" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "samu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #78,109 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saké" and "samu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saké vs stase". 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 #78,109 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