serievsserviWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: serie is a noun, servi is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“serie” is a noun and “servi” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,072
“serie” frequency rank
#2,494
“servi” frequency rank
12566
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature serie servi
Definition Série. Participe passé masculin singulier de servir.

Where the eye mixes serie and servi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. serie (CVCVV) and servi (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
serie
5 ch
servi

Look-alike desk: serie vs servi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: serie is \ˈse.ɾje\ while servi is \sɛʁ.vi\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12566, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

serie is recorded at frequency rank #10,072, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈse.ɾje\. servi is at rank #2,494, tagged as averb, pronounced \sɛʁ.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 12566, this pair ranks #404,705 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of serie vs servi

Shared letters: eirs. Private to "serie": -. Private to "servi": v.

"serie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "servi" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • serieesrie · seire · serei · serrie · sreie · sserie
  • serviesrvi · seriv · serrvi · servvi · sevri · srevi · sservi

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "serie" and "servi" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "serie" is a noun and "servi" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "serie" or "servi" show up more?
"servi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,494 in our French list, against #10,072 for "serie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "serie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "servi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #404,705 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "serie" and "servi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Selim vs serie". 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 #404,705 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