sciurevssutureConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#46,442
“sciure” frequency rank
#21,179
“suture” frequency rank
67621
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sciure suture
Definition Parcelles qui tombent du bois ou de toute autre matière dure que l’on scie. Jointure de deux parties du crâne qui entrent l’une dans l’autre par des dentelures et qui paraissent comme cousues ensemble.

Where the eye mixes sciure and suture

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
sciure
6 ch
suture

Visual trap between sciure and suture

A purely visual mix-up. sciure (\sjyʁ\) and suture (\sy.tyʁ\) 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 67621, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sciure is recorded at frequency rank #46,442, classified as anoun, pronounced \sjyʁ\. suture is at rank #21,179, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sy.tyʁ\.

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 67621, this pair ranks #62,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sciure vs suture

Shared letters: ersu. Private to "sciure": ci. Private to "suture": t.

"sciure" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "suture" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sciurecsiure · scciure · scirue · sciuer · sciurre · scuire · sicure · ssciure
  • suturessuture · stuure · sutrue · sutture · sutuer · suturre · suutre · usture

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sciure" and "suture" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\sjyʁ\ versus \sy.tyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "sciure" or "suture" show up more?
"suture" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,179 in our French list, against #46,442 for "sciure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "sciure" and "suture" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sciure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "suture" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sciure" and "suture" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "scindé vs sciure". 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 #62,618 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