Which to use
“sauté” and “sure” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #8,780
- “sauté” frequency rank
- #8,164
- “sure” frequency rank
- 16944
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sauté | sure |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qu’on a fait sauter dans une poêle. | Féminin singulier de sur : qui a un goût acide et aigrelet. |
Where the eye mixes sauté and sure
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: sauté vs sure
A purely visual mix-up. sauté (\so.te\) and sure (\syʁ\) 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 16944, 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\. sure is at rank #8,164, tagged as anadj, pronounced \syʁ\.
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 16944, this pair ranks #385,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of sauté vs sure
Shared letters: su. Private to "sauté": até. Private to "sure": er.
"sauté" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "sure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- sure ← srue · ssure · surre · usre
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sauté" for "sure" ever safe?
Frequency check: "sauté" vs "sure" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
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 "sure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #385,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sauté" and "sure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sure 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 #385,524 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.