seingvsspinWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#38,041
“seing” frequency rank
#17,275
“spin” frequency rank
55316
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seing spin
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. Propriété quantique intrinsèque associée à chaque particule, qui est caractéristique de la nature de la particule, au même titre que sa masse et sa charge électrique, et qui s’apparente à la quantité de mouvement angulaire sans l’être.

Where the eye mixes seing and spin

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

5 ch
seing
4 ch
spin

Visual trap between seing and spin

A purely visual mix-up. seing (\sɛ̃\) and spin (\spin\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55316, 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\. spin is at rank #17,275, tagged as anoun, pronounced \spin\.

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 55316, this pair ranks #128,234 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of seing vs spin

Shared letters: ins. Private to "seing": eg. Private to "spin": p.

"seing" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "spin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seingesing · seign · seingg · seinng · senig · sieng · sseing
  • spinpsin · sipn · spinn · spni · sppin · sspin

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "seing" for "spin" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sɛ̃\ versus \spin\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "seing" vs "spin" - which ranks higher?
"spin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,275 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.

Useful next steps

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 "spin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #128,234 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seing" and "spin" 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 #128,234 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