siègevssiégerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: siège is a noun, siéger is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,347
“siège” frequency rank
#17,007
“siéger” frequency rank
18354
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature siège siéger
Definition Meuble utilisé pour s’asseoir. Occuper un siège dans un organe officiel ou administratif.

Where the eye mixes siège and siéger

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
siège
6 ch
siéger

Visual trap between siège and siéger

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: siège is \sjɛʒ\ while siéger is \sje.ʒe\. 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 18354, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

siège is recorded at frequency rank #1,347, classified as anoun, pronounced \sjɛʒ\. siéger is at rank #17,007, tagged as averb, pronounced \sje.ʒe\.

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 18354, this pair ranks #378,754 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of siège vs siéger

Shared letters: egis. Private to "siège": è. Private to "siéger": .

"siège" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "siéger" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "siège" for "siéger" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "siège" is a noun and "siéger" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "siège" or "siéger" show up more?
"siège" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,347 in our French list, against #17,007 for "siéger". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "siège" and "siéger" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "siège" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "siéger" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,754 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "siège" and "siéger" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "siéger vs spiegel". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #378,754 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