SauvssautsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#40,487
“Sau” frequency rank
#17,000
“sauts” frequency rank
57487
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Sau sauts
Definition Truie. Pluriel de saut.

Where the eye mixes Sau and sauts

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

3 ch
Sau
5 ch
sauts

Why the eye confuses Sau with sauts

A purely visual mix-up. Sau (\zaʊ̯\) and sauts (\so\) 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 extra letter(s) - “Sau” sits inside “sauts”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57487, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Sau is recorded at frequency rank #40,487, classified as anoun, pronounced \zaʊ̯\. sauts is at rank #17,000, tagged as anoun, pronounced \so\.

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 57487, this pair ranks #114,745 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Sau vs sauts

Shared letters: asu. Private to "Sau": -. Private to "sauts": t.

"Sau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "sauts" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sautsasuts · satus · saust · sautss · sautts · ssauts · suats

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Sau" for "sauts" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\zaʊ̯\ versus \so\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Sau" vs "sauts" - which ranks higher?
"sauts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,000 in our French list, against #40,487 for "Sau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Sau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sauts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #114,745 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Sau" and "sauts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs suu". 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 #114,745 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