signvssinWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: sign is a noun, sin is a symbol, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sign” is a noun and “sin” is a symbol - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,257
“sign” frequency rank
#16,237
“sin” frequency rank
47494
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sign sin
Definition Panneau (routier, de rue) ; panonceau ; pancarte (sur un mur, une vitrine, etc.) ; affiche (publicitaire), écriteau (handmade sign). Sinus.

Letter map: sign vs sin

Shared letters muted; letters that set sign and sin apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
sign
3 ch
sin

Grammar separator: sign vs sin

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sign is anoun and sinasymbol. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47494, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sign is recorded at frequency rank #31,257, classified as anoun, pronounced \saɪn\. sin is at rank #16,237, tagged as asymbol.

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 47494, this pair ranks #186,520 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sign vs sin

Shared letters: ins. Private to "sign": g. Private to "sin": -.

"sign" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "sin" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • signisgn · sgin · siggn · signn · ssign

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sign" and "sin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sign" is a noun and "sin" a symbol, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sign" vs "sin" - which ranks higher?
"sin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,237 in our French list, against #31,257 for "sign". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "sign" and "sin". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sign" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,520 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sign" and "sin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sign vs sind". 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 #186,520 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