sakévssaugeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#43,653
“saké” frequency rank
#41,528
“sauge” frequency rank
85181
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saké sauge
Definition Vin de riz japonais, produit par fermentation comme la bière, titrant de 14° à 17°. Membre du genre Salvia, plantes souvent aromatiques de la famille des lamiacées.

Where the eye mixes saké and sauge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. saké runs 4 letters (CVCV) against sauge's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
saké
5 ch
sauge

Look-alike desk: saké vs sauge

A purely visual mix-up. saké (\sa.ke\) and sauge (\soʒ\) 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 85181, 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\. sauge is at rank #41,528, tagged as anoun, pronounced \soʒ\.

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 85181, this pair ranks #11,759 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of saké vs sauge

Shared letters: as. Private to "saké": ké. Private to "sauge": egu.

"saké" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sauge" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sauge ← asuge · sague · saueg · saugge · ssauge

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "saké" for "sauge" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sa.ke\ versus \soʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "saké" or "sauge"?
"sauge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,528 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "saké" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sauge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,759 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saké" and "sauge" 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 #11,759 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