satinvsstationWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,413
“satin” frequency rank
#1,975
“station” frequency rank
24388
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature satin station
Definition Armure de tissage qui consiste à faire croiser, dans le rapport de l’armure, une seule fois chaque fil de chaîne et chaque fil de trame afin d’obtenir une face effet chaîne et l’autre effet trame pour un effet doux et brillant. Pause, arrêt que l’on fait dans un parcours.

Where the eye mixes satin and station

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. satin runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against station's 7 (CCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
satin
7 ch
station

Look-alike desk: satin vs station

A purely visual mix-up. satin (\sa.tɛ̃\) and station (\sta.sjɔ̃\) 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 24388, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

satin is recorded at frequency rank #22,413, classified as anoun, pronounced \sa.tɛ̃\. station is at rank #1,975, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sta.sjɔ̃\.

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 24388, this pair ranks #346,888 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of satin vs station

Shared letters: ainst. Private to "satin": -. Private to "station": o.

"satin" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "station" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • satin ← astin · satinn · satni · sattin · ssatin · stain
  • station ← sattion · sstation · staiton · statino · stationn · statoin · stattion · sttaion

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "satin" for "station" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sa.tɛ̃\ versus \sta.sjɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "satin" or "station" show up more?
"station" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,975 in our French list, against #22,413 for "satin". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "satin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "station" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #346,888 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "satin" and "station" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Safi vs satin". 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 #346,888 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