Which to use
“sauge” and “soude” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,528
- “sauge” frequency rank
- #21,472
- “soude” frequency rank
- 63000
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sauge | soude |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Membre du genre Salvia, plantes souvent aromatiques de la famille des lamiacées. | Hydroxyde de sodium, de formule NaOH. C'est un produit extrêmement dangereux car caustique pour les tissus vivants (→ voir soude caustique). |
Where the eye mixes sauge and soude
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sauge and soude follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses sauge with soude
A purely visual mix-up. sauge (\soʒ\) and soude (\sud\) 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 63000, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sauge is recorded at frequency rank #41,528, classified as anoun, pronounced \soʒ\. soude is at rank #21,472, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sud\.
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 63000, this pair ranks #84,171 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sauge vs soude
Shared letters: esu. Private to "sauge": ag. Private to "soude": do.
"sauge" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "soude" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sauge" and "soude" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "sauge" or "soude" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "sauge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "soude" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #84,171 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sauge" and "soude" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sadie vs sauge". 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 #84,171 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.