SévignévssoignéWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Sévigné is a name, soigné is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Sévigné” is a name and “soigné” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,749
“Sévigné” frequency rank
#10,948
“soigné” frequency rank
46697
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Sévigné soigné
Definition Ancien fief actuellement situé sur la commune de Cesson-Sévigné. Qui est fait avec soin, où l’on voit du soin.

Letter map: Sévigné vs soigné

Shared letters muted; letters that set Sévigné and soigné apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. Sévigné runs 7 letters (CVCVCCV) against soigné's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
Sévigné
6 ch
soigné

Role in the sentence - Sévigné and soigné

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Sévigné is aname and soignéanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46697, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Sévigné is recorded at frequency rank #35,749, classified as aname, pronounced \se.vi.ɲe\. soigné is at rank #10,948, tagged as anadj.

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 46697, this pair ranks #192,857 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Sévigné vs soigné

Shared letters: ginsé. Private to "Sévigné": v. Private to "soigné": o.

"Sévigné" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "soigné" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Sévigné" for "soigné" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Sévigné" is a name and "soigné" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Sévigné" or "soigné"?
"soigné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,948 in our French list, against #35,749 for "Sévigné". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Sévigné" and "soigné".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Sévigné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soigné" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,857 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Sévigné" and "soigné" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saigné vs Sévigné". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #192,857 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