sautévssucéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,780
“sauté” frequency rank
#33,031
“sucé” frequency rank
41811
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sauté sucé
Definition Qu’on a fait sauter dans une poêle. Aspiré, léché.

Where the eye mixes sauté and sucé

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

5 ch
sauté
4 ch
sucé

Look-alike desk: sauté vs sucé

A purely visual mix-up. sauté (\so.te\) and sucé (\sy.se\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41811, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sauté is recorded at frequency rank #8,780, classified as anadj, pronounced \so.te\. sucé is at rank #33,031, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sy.se\.

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 41811, this pair ranks #230,322 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sauté vs sucé

Shared letters: sué. Private to "sauté": at. Private to "sucé": c.

"sauté" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "sucé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sauté" for "sucé" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\so.te\ versus \sy.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "sauté" or "sucé"?
"sauté" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,780 in our French list, against #33,031 for "sucé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sauté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sucé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,322 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sauté" and "sucé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sucé vs suu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #230,322 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