sève vs sévir, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#23,043
“sève” frequency rank: #30,832
“sévir” frequency rank: 53875
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sève	sévir
Definition	Liquide nutritif formé des sucs que les racines puisent dans le sol et répandent dans toutes les parties d’un végétal.	Exercer la répression avec rigueur, contre les personnes, leurs actes.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set sève and sévir apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

sève

5 ch

sévir

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sève is \sɛv\ while sévir is \se.viʁ\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53875, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sève is recorded at frequency rank #23,043, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛv\. sévir is at rank #30,832, tagged as averb, pronounced \se.viʁ\.

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 53875, this pair ranks #137,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sève vs sévir

Shared letters: sv. Private to "sève": eè. Private to "sévir": iré.

"sève" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "sévir" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Frequency comparison

sève#23,043

sévir#30,832

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sève" and "sévir" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sève" is a noun and "sévir" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "sève" or "sévir"?

"sève" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,043 in our French list, against #30,832 for "sévir". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering sève vs sévir

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “sève”; for a verb, it's “sévir”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “sève” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable