silovssumoConfusable pair

Which to use

“silo” and “sumo” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#27,970
“silo” frequency rank
#45,896
“sumo” frequency rank
73866
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature silo sumo
Definition Cavité pratiquée dans la terre pour y conserver du blé, des racines, etc. Sport de lutte japonais, consistant à faire sortir l’adversaire hors d’un cercle marquant la zone de lutte ou à le faire tomber.

Where the eye mixes silo and sumo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. silo and sumo follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
silo
4 ch
sumo

Look-alike desk: silo vs sumo

A purely visual mix-up. silo (\si.lo\) and sumo (\sy.mo\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

silo is recorded at frequency rank #27,970, classified as anoun, pronounced \si.lo\. sumo is at rank #45,896, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sy.mo\.

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 73866, this pair ranks #39,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of silo vs sumo

Shared letters: os. Private to "silo": il. Private to "sumo": mu.

"silo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sumo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • silo ← islo · sillo · siol · slio · ssilo
  • sumo ← smuo · ssumo · summo · suom · usmo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "silo" for "sumo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\si.lo\ versus \sy.mo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "silo" vs "sumo" - which ranks higher?
"silo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,970 in our French list, against #45,896 for "sumo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "silo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sumo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "silo" and "sumo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sumo vs suu". 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 #39,033 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