silosvssinusWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,372
“silos” frequency rank
#26,185
“sinus” frequency rank
56557
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature silos sinus
Definition Pluriel de silo. Formation anatomique creuse, liquidienne ou pneumatique.

Where the eye mixes silos and sinus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
silos
5 ch
sinus

Why the eye confuses silos with sinus

A purely visual mix-up. silos (\si.lo\) and sinus (\si.nys\) 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 56557, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

silos is recorded at frequency rank #30,372, classified as anoun, pronounced \si.lo\. sinus is at rank #26,185, tagged as anoun, pronounced \si.nys\.

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 56557, this pair ranks #120,363 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of silos vs sinus

Shared letters: is. Private to "silos": lo. Private to "sinus": nu.

"silos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "sinus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • silosislos · sillos · siloss · silso · siols · slios · ssilos
  • sinusisnus · sinnus · sinsu · sinuss · siuns · snius · ssinus

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "silos" and "sinus" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\si.lo\ versus \si.nys\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "silos" or "sinus"?
"sinus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,185 in our French list, against #30,372 for "silos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "silos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sinus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,363 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "silos" and "sinus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "silos vs sires". 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 #120,363 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