sautvssceauxWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#5,187
“saut” frequency rank
#11,131
“sceaux” frequency rank
16318
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saut sceaux
Definition Action de sauter, bond, mouvement brusque par lequel on s’élance en l’air. Pluriel de sceau.

Same sound, different letters: saut vs sceaux

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. saut runs 4 letters (CVVC) against sceaux's 6 (CCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
saut
6 ch
sceaux

Same sound, different spelling - saut / sceaux

This is the hard kind. saut and sceaux are pronounced identically (\so\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16318, 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\. sceaux is at rank #11,131, 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 16318, this pair ranks #388,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of saut vs sceaux

Shared letters: asu. Private to "saut": t. Private to "sceaux": cex.

"saut" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "sceaux" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • saut ← asut · satu · sautt · ssaut · suat
  • sceaux ← cseaux · scaeux · scceaux · sceauxx · sceaxu · sceuax · secaux · ssceaux

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saut" and "sceaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\so\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "saut" or "sceaux" show up more?
"saut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,187 in our French list, against #11,131 for "sceaux". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "saut" / "sceaux". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "saut" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sceaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saut" and "sceaux" 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 #388,368 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