seauvsséviTell them apart

Quick tell: seau is a noun, sévi is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seau” is a noun and “sévi” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,010
“seau” frequency rank
#42,643
“sévi” frequency rank
58653
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seau sévi
Definition Récipient cylindrique, ou plus souvent tronconique, de plastique, de bois ou de métal, en général pourvu d’une anse, servant à transporter un liquide, du sable ou autres. Participe passé masculin singulier de sévir.

Where the eye mixes seau and sévi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
seau
4 ch
sévi

Look-alike desk: seau vs sévi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: seau is \so\ while sévi is \se.vi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58653, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seau is recorded at frequency rank #16,010, classified as anoun, pronounced \so\. sévi is at rank #42,643, tagged as averb, pronounced \se.vi\.

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 58653, this pair ranks #107,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of seau vs sévi

Shared letters: s. Private to "seau": aeu. Private to "sévi": ivé.

"seau" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "sévi" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seauesau · saeu · seua · sseau

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "seau" and "sévi" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seau" is a noun and "sévi" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "seau" or "sévi"?
"seau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,010 in our French list, against #42,643 for "sévi". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "seau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sévi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #107,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seau" and "sévi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sepp vs sévi". 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 #107,751 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