sakévsshakerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,653
“saké” frequency rank
#41,537
“shaker” frequency rank
85190
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saké shaker
Definition Vin de riz japonais, produit par fermentation comme la bière, titrant de 14° à 17°. Bouteille, généralement métallique, munie d’un large couvercle amovible pour mélanger intimement les ingrédients composant un cocktail.

Where the eye mixes saké and shaker

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
saké
6 ch
shaker

Why the eye confuses saké with shaker

A purely visual mix-up. saké (\sa.ke\) and shaker (\ʃɛ.kœʁ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85190, 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\. shaker is at rank #41,537, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛ.kœʁ\.

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 85190, this pair ranks #11,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of saké vs shaker

Shared letters: aks. Private to "saké": é. Private to "shaker": ehr.

"saké" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "shaker" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shakerhsaker · sahker · shaekr · shakerr · shakker · shakre · shhaker · shkaer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "saké" for "shaker" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sa.ke\ versus \ʃɛ.kœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "saké" or "shaker" show up more?
"shaker" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,537 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 "shaker" 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 "shaker" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saké" and "shaker" 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 #11,751 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