sharevsstartWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#34,310
“share” frequency rank
#6,662
“start” frequency rank
40972
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature share start
Definition Participation. Départ, pour les courses de sprint.

Where the eye mixes share and start

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

5 ch
share
5 ch
start

Look-alike desk: share vs start

A purely visual mix-up. share (\ʃɛə(ɹ)\) and start (\staʁt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40972, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

share is recorded at frequency rank #34,310, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛə(ɹ)\. start is at rank #6,662, tagged as anoun, pronounced \staʁt\.

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 40972, this pair ranks #236,556 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of share vs start

Shared letters: ars. Private to "share": eh. Private to "start": t.

"share" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "start" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sharehsare · sahre · shaer · sharre · shhare · shrae · sshare
  • startsatrt · sstart · starrt · startt · statr · sttart · tsart

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "share" for "start" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃɛə(ɹ)\ versus \staʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "share" or "start"?
"start" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,662 in our French list, against #34,310 for "share". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "share" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "start" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #236,556 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "share" and "start" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "share vs stase". 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 #236,556 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