Which to use
“saké” is a noun and “shake” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #43,653
- “saké” frequency rank
- #24,775
- “shake” frequency rank
- 68428
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | saké | shake |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Vin de riz japonais, produit par fermentation comme la bière, titrant de 14° à 17°. | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de shaker. |
Where the eye mixes saké and shake
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. saké runs 4 letters (CVCV) against shake's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses saké with shake
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: saké is \sa.ke\ while shake is \ʃɛk\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68428, 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\. shake is at rank #24,775, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʃɛk\.
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 68428, this pair ranks #59,244 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of saké vs shake
Shared letters: aks. Private to "saké": é. Private to "shake": eh.
"saké" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "shake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- shake ← hsake · sahke · shaek · shakke · shhake · shkae · sshake
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "saké" for "shake" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "saké" or "shake" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "saké" and "shake" 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 "shake" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #59,244 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "saké" and "shake" 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 #59,244 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.