Which to use
“signe” and “singe” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,097
- “signe” frequency rank
- #7,628
- “singe” frequency rank
- 8725
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | signe | singe |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Indice ou marque d’une chose. | Mammifère de l’ordre des Primates, hors l’Homme, hors le lémurien. |
Where the eye mixes signe and singe
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: signe vs singe
A purely visual mix-up. signe (\siɲ\) and singe (\sɛ̃ʒ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (gn ↔ ng) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8725, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
signe is recorded at frequency rank #1,097, classified as anoun, pronounced \siɲ\. singe is at rank #7,628, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɛ̃ʒ\.
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 8725, this pair ranks #419,055 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of signe vs singe
Shared letters: egins. Private to "signe": -. Private to "singe": -.
"signe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "singe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "signe" for "singe" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "signe" or "singe" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "signe" and "singe" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "signe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "singe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #419,055 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "signe" and "singe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sind vs singe". 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 #419,055 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.