signavssignaléWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: signa is a verb, signalé is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“signa” is a verb and “signalé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,371
“signa” frequency rank
#6,759
“signalé” frequency rank
37130
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature signa signalé
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de signer. Qui est remarquable.

Letter map: signa vs signalé

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

5 ch
signa
7 ch
signalé

Grammar separator: signa vs signalé

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: signa is averb and signaléanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “signa” sits inside “signalé”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37130, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

signa is recorded at frequency rank #30,371, classified as averb, pronounced \si.ɲa\. signalé is at rank #6,759, 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 37130, this pair ranks #264,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of signa vs signalé

Shared letters: agins. Private to "signa": -. Private to "signalé": lé.

"signa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "signalé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • signa ← isgna · sgina · sigan · siggna · signna · singa · ssigna

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "signa" and "signalé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "signa" is a verb and "signalé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "signa" or "signalé"?
"signalé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,759 in our French list, against #30,371 for "signa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "signa" and "signalé".

  • Full dictionary entry for "signa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "signalé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "signa" and "signalé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "signa 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 #264,670 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