singevssongesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,628
“singe” frequency rank
#29,154
“songes” frequency rank
36782
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature singe songes
Definition Mammifère de l’ordre des Primates, hors l’Homme, hors le lémurien. Pluriel de songe.

Where the eye mixes singe and songes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
singe
6 ch
songes

Visual trap between singe and songes

A purely visual mix-up. singe (\sɛ̃ʒ\) and songes (\sɔ̃ʒ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

singe is recorded at frequency rank #7,628, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛ̃ʒ\. songes is at rank #29,154, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɔ̃ʒ\.

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 36782, this pair ranks #267,175 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of singe vs songes

Shared letters: egns. Private to "singe": i. Private to "songes": o.

"singe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "songes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • singeisnge · sineg · singge · sinnge · snige · ssinge
  • songesosnges · snoges · sognes · sonegs · songess · songges · songse · sonnges

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "singe" and "songes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\sɛ̃ʒ\ versus \sɔ̃ʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "singe" vs "songes" - which ranks higher?
"singe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,628 in our French list, against #29,154 for "songes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "singe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "songes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #267,175 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "singe" and "songes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs songes". 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 #267,175 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