servevssexeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14,566
“serve” frequency rank
#1,496
“sexe” frequency rank
16062
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature serve sexe
Definition Femme attachée au domaine qu’elle cultive moyennant redevance au seigneur qui en est le propriétaire. Attribut utilisé pour classer un individu dans les espèces biologiques employant un mode de reproduction sexué.

Where the eye mixes serve and sexe

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

5 ch
serve
4 ch
sexe

Look-alike desk: serve vs sexe

A purely visual mix-up. serve (\sɛʁv\) and sexe (\sɛks\) 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 16062, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

serve is recorded at frequency rank #14,566, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛʁv\. sexe is at rank #1,496, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɛks\.

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 16062, this pair ranks #389,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of serve vs sexe

Shared letters: es. Private to "serve": rv. Private to "sexe": x.

"serve" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sexe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • serveesrve · serev · serrve · servve · sevre · sreve · sserve
  • sexeesxe · seex · sexxe · ssexe · sxee

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "serve" and "sexe" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sɛʁv\ versus \sɛks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "serve" or "sexe"?
"sexe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,496 in our French list, against #14,566 for "serve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "serve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sexe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "serve" and "sexe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "semée vs serve". 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 #389,564 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