seuvssonWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: seu is a adjective, son is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seu” is an adjective and “son” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,274
“seu” frequency rank
#42
“son” frequency rank
35316
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seu son
Definition Sa, son. Troisième personne du sujet, objet masculin singulier.

Letter map: seu vs son

Shared letters muted; letters that set seu and son apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
seu
3 ch
son

Grammar separator: seu vs son

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: seu is anadjective and sonadeterminer. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35316, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seu is recorded at frequency rank #35,274, classified as anadj. son is at rank #42, tagged as adet, pronounced \sɔ̃\.

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 35316, this pair ranks #277,614 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of seu vs son

Shared letters: s. Private to "seu": eu. Private to "son": no.

"seu" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "son" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "seu" and "son" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seu" is an adjective and "son" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "seu" or "son" show up more?
"son" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42 in our French list, against #35,274 for "seu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "seu" and "son".

  • Full dictionary entry for "seu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "son" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #277,614 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seu" and "son" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seu vs suu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #277,614 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