seavsseauxConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#13,258
“sea” frequency rank
#30,806
“seaux” frequency rank
44064
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sea seaux
Definition Mer. Pluriel de seau.

Where the eye mixes sea and seaux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sea runs 3 letters (CVV) against seaux's 5 (CVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
sea
5 ch
seaux

Why the eye confuses sea with seaux

A purely visual mix-up. sea (\siː\) and seaux (\so\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “sea” sits inside “seaux”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44064, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sea is recorded at frequency rank #13,258, classified as anoun, pronounced \siː\. seaux is at rank #30,806, 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 44064, this pair ranks #213,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sea vs seaux

Shared letters: aes. Private to "sea": -. Private to "seaux": ux.

"sea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "seaux" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seaux ← esaux · saeux · seauxx · seaxu · seuax · sseaux

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sea" and "seaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\siː\ versus \so\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "sea" or "seaux"?
"sea" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,258 in our French list, against #30,806 for "seaux". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "seaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #213,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sea" and "seaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seaux vs seum". 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 #213,332 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