singevsstageConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#7,628
“singe” frequency rank
#2,598
“stage” frequency rank
10226
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature singe stage
Definition Mammifère de l’ordre des Primates, hors l’Homme, hors le lémurien. Période de travail auprès d’un employeur, effectuée à des fins de formation et faisant partie intégrante d’un cursus scolaire ou de l’enseignement supérieur.

Where the eye mixes singe and stage

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

5 ch
singe
5 ch
stage

Why the eye confuses singe with stage

A purely visual mix-up. singe (\sɛ̃ʒ\) and stage (\staʒ\) 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 10226, 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\. stage is at rank #2,598, tagged as anoun, pronounced \staʒ\.

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 10226, this pair ranks #413,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of singe vs stage

Shared letters: egs. Private to "singe": in. Private to "stage": at.

"singe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "stage" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • singeisnge · sineg · singge · sinnge · snige · ssinge
  • stagesatge · sstage · staeg · stagge · stgae · sttage · tsage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "singe" for "stage" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sɛ̃ʒ\ versus \staʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "singe" or "stage" show up more?
"stage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,598 in our French list, against #7,628 for "singe". 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 "singe" and "stage" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "singe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "singe" and "stage" 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 #413,763 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