Which to use
“seed” and “sève” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,533
- “seed” frequency rank
- #23,043
- “sève” frequency rank
- 64576
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seed | sève |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Graine, pépin. | Liquide nutritif formé des sucs que les racines puisent dans le sol et répandent dans toutes les parties d’un végétal. |
Where the eye mixes seed and sève
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. seed (CVVC) and sève (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses seed with sève
A purely visual mix-up. seed (\siːd\) and sève (\sɛv\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64576, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seed is recorded at frequency rank #41,533, classified as anoun, pronounced \siːd\. sève is at rank #23,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɛv\.
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 64576, this pair ranks #76,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of seed vs sève
Shared letters: es. Private to "seed": d. Private to "sève": vè.
"seed" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "sève" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- seed ← esed · sede · seedd · sseed
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "seed" for "sève" ever safe?
Frequency check: "seed" vs "sève" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "seed" and "sève" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "seed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sève" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #76,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seed" and "sève" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seed vs Sepp". 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 #76,378 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.