sensésvssunsetWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sensés is a adjective, sunset is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#31,255
“sensés” frequency rank
#27,251
“sunset” frequency rank
58506
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sensés sunset
Definition Masculin pluriel de sensé. Coucher de soleil, coucher du soleil.

Where the eye mixes sensés and sunset

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sensés and sunset follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
sensés
6 ch
sunset

Visual trap between sensés and sunset

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sensés is \sɑ̃.se\ while sunset is \ˈsʌn.ˌsɛt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sensés is recorded at frequency rank #31,255, classified as anadj, pronounced \sɑ̃.se\. sunset is at rank #27,251, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈsʌn.ˌsɛt\.

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 58506, this pair ranks #108,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sensés vs sunset

Shared letters: ens. Private to "sensés": é. Private to "sunset": tu.

"sensés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sunset" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sunset ← snuset · ssunset · sunest · sunnset · sunsett · sunsset · sunste · susnet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sensés" for "sunset" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sensés" is an adjective and "sunset" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sensés" or "sunset" show up more?
"sunset" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,251 in our French list, against #31,255 for "sensés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "sensés" and "sunset" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sensés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sunset" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #108,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sensés" and "sunset" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "semés vs sensés". 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 #108,658 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