Which to use
“selon” is a preposition and “sillon” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #225
- “selon” frequency rank
- #22,096
- “sillon” frequency rank
- 22321
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | selon | sillon |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | D’après ; eu égard à ; conformément à ; d’une manière correspondant à ; en proportion ; en fonction de. | Tranchée que le soc, le coutre de la charrue ouvre dans la terre qu’on laboure. |
Where the eye mixes selon and sillon
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. selon runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against sillon's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses selon with sillon
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: selon is \sə.lɔ̃\ while sillon is \si.jɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22321, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
selon is recorded at frequency rank #225, classified as aprep, pronounced \sə.lɔ̃\. sillon is at rank #22,096, tagged as anoun, pronounced \si.jɔ̃\.
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 22321, this pair ranks #358,625 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of selon vs sillon
Shared letters: lnos. Private to "selon": e. Private to "sillon": i.
"selon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "sillon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "selon" and "sillon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "selon" or "sillon"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "selon" and "sillon" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "selon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sillon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #358,625 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "selon" and "sillon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sablon vs sillon". 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 #358,625 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.