seingvsseizeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: seing is a noun, seize is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seing” is a noun and “seize” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,041
“seing” frequency rank
#6,659
“seize” frequency rank
44700
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seing seize
Definition Nom de quelqu’un écrit par lui-même au bas d’une lettre, d’un acte, pour le certifier, pour le confirmer, pour le rendre valable. Le nombre cardinal situé après quinze en y ajoutant un, et avant dix-sept, représenté 16 en chiffres arabes, et XVI en chiffres romains.

Where the eye mixes seing and seize

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
seing
5 ch
seize

Look-alike desk: seing vs seize

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: seing is \sɛ̃\ while seize is \sɛz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44700, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seing is recorded at frequency rank #38,041, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛ̃\. seize is at rank #6,659, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɛz\.

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 44700, this pair ranks #208,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of seing vs seize

Shared letters: eis. Private to "seing": gn. Private to "seize": z.

"seing" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "seize" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seingesing · seign · seingg · seinng · senig · sieng · sseing
  • seizeesize · seiez · seizze · sezie · sieze · sseize

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "seing" and "seize" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seing" is a noun and "seize" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "seing" or "seize"?
"seize" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,659 in our French list, against #38,041 for "seing". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "seing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "seize" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #208,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seing" and "seize" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seing vs sind". 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 #208,491 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