Which to use
“seen” and “sévi” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,534
- “seen” frequency rank
- #42,643
- “sévi” frequency rank
- 84177
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seen | sévi |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé du verbe to see. | Participe passé masculin singulier de sévir. |
Where the eye mixes seen and sévi
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. seen (CVVC) and sévi (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: seen vs sévi
A purely visual mix-up. seen (\siːn\) and sévi (\se.vi\) 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 84177, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seen is recorded at frequency rank #41,534, classified as averb, pronounced \siːn\. 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 84177, this pair ranks #13,445 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of seen vs sévi
Shared letters: s. Private to "seen": en. Private to "sévi": ivé.
"seen" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "sévi" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- seen ← seenn · sene · sseen
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "seen" and "sévi" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "seen" or "sévi"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "seen" 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 #13,445 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seen" 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 #13,445 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.