signvssoignéWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#31,257
“sign” frequency rank
#10,948
“soigné” frequency rank
42205
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sign soigné
Definition Panneau (routier, de rue) ; panonceau ; pancarte (sur un mur, une vitrine, etc.) ; affiche (publicitaire), écriteau (handmade sign). Qui est fait avec soin, où l’on voit du soin.

Letter map: sign vs soigné

Shared letters muted; letters that set sign and soigné apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. sign runs 4 letters (CVCC) against soigné's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sign
6 ch
soigné

Role in the sentence - sign and soigné

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sign is anoun and soignéanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42205, 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\. 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 42205, this pair ranks #227,405 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sign vs soigné

Shared letters: gins. Private to "sign": -. Private to "soigné": oé.

"sign" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "soigné" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sign ← isgn · sgin · siggn · signn · ssign

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sign" and "soigné" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sign" is a noun and "soigné" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sign" or "soigné" show up more?
"soigné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,948 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.

What to do next

Pair "sign" vs "soigné" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sign" 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 #227,405 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sign" and "soigné" 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 #227,405 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