sintvsskinsTell them apart

Quick tell: sint is a pronoun, skins is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sint” is a pronoun and “skins” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,277
“sint” frequency rank
#30,376
“skins” frequency rank
65653
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sint skins
Definition Leur, se (pronom de réciprocité). Soirée de jeunes et d’adolescents sans limite.

Where the eye mixes sint and skins

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

4 ch
sint
5 ch
skins

Why the eye confuses sint with skins

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sint is \sint\ while skins is \skinz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65653, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sint is recorded at frequency rank #35,277, classified as apron, pronounced \sint\. skins is at rank #30,376, tagged as anoun, pronounced \skinz\.

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 65653, this pair ranks #71,370 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sint vs skins

Shared letters: ins. Private to "sint": t. Private to "skins": k.

"sint" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "skins" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sintisnt · sinnt · sintt · sitn · snit · ssint
  • skinsksins · sikns · skinns · skinss · skisn · skkins · sknis · sskins

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sint" and "skins" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sint" is a pronoun and "skins" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sint" or "skins" show up more?
"skins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,376 in our French list, against #35,277 for "sint". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sint" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "skins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,370 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sint" and "skins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sind vs sint". 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 #71,370 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