Which to use
“santé” and “sente” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #496
- “santé” frequency rank
- #13,474
- “sente” frequency rank
- 13970
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | santé | sente |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | État sain de l’organisme. | Petit sentier ou petite voie, souvent non goudronnée, et passant au travers des bois. |
Where the eye mixes santé and sente
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. santé and sente follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: santé vs sente
A purely visual mix-up. santé (\sɑ̃.te\) and sente (\sɑ̃t\) 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 13970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
santé is recorded at frequency rank #496, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɑ̃.te\. sente is at rank #13,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɑ̃t\.
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 13970, this pair ranks #398,757 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of santé vs sente
Shared letters: nst. Private to "santé": aé. Private to "sente": e.
"santé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "sente" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- sente ← esnte · senet · sennte · sentte · setne · snete · ssente
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "santé" for "sente" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "santé" or "sente" show up more?
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 "santé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sente" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #398,757 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "santé" and "sente" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "senat vs sente". 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 #398,757 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.