snakevsstaseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#23,372
“snake” frequency rank
#49,372
“stase” frequency rank
72744
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature snake stase
Definition Serpent. Stabilité, constance dans le temps, immobilité, passivité ; absence de changement, de mouvement, d’activité (voir aussi l’adjectif statique).

Where the eye mixes snake and stase

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

5 ch
snake
5 ch
stase

Visual trap between snake and stase

A purely visual mix-up. snake (\ˈsneɪk\) and stase (\staz\) 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 72744, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

snake is recorded at frequency rank #23,372, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈsneɪk\. stase is at rank #49,372, tagged as anoun, pronounced \staz\.

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 72744, this pair ranks #42,924 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of snake vs stase

Shared letters: aes. Private to "snake": kn. Private to "stase": t.

"snake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stase" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • snakensake · sanke · snaek · snakke · snkae · snnake · ssnake
  • stasesatse · sstase · staes · stasse · stsae · sttase

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "snake" for "stase" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈsneɪk\ versus \staz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "snake" or "stase"?
"snake" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,372 in our French list, against #49,372 for "stase". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "snake" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stase" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,924 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "snake" and "stase" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "SSE vs stase". 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 #42,924 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