sautvssauterTell them apart

Quick tell: saut is a noun, sauter is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“saut” is a noun and “sauter” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,187
“saut” frequency rank
#3,800
“sauter” frequency rank
8987
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saut sauter
Definition Action de sauter, bond, mouvement brusque par lequel on s’élance en l’air. S’élancer en l’air, soit pour retomber au même endroit, soit pour franchir un espace.

Where the eye mixes saut and sauter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. saut runs 4 letters (CVVC) against sauter's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
saut
6 ch
sauter

Look-alike desk: saut vs sauter

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: saut is \so\ while sauter is \so.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “saut” sits inside “sauter”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8987, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saut is recorded at frequency rank #5,187, classified as anoun, pronounced \so\. sauter is at rank #3,800, tagged as averb, pronounced \so.te\.

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 8987, this pair ranks #418,187 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of saut vs sauter

Shared letters: astu. Private to "saut": -. Private to "sauter": er.

"saut" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "sauter" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sautasut · satu · sautt · ssaut · suat
  • sauterasuter · satuer · sauetr · sauterr · sautre · sautter · ssauter · suater

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saut" and "sauter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "saut" is a noun and "sauter" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "saut" or "sauter" show up more?
"sauter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,800 in our French list, against #5,187 for "saut". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "saut" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sauter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #418,187 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saut" and "sauter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saut 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 #418,187 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