sontvsstWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sont is a verb, st is a symbol, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sont” is a verb and “st” is a symbol - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47
“sont” frequency rank
#1,190
“st” frequency rank
1237
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sont st
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de être. Symbole de la stère.

Letter map: sont vs st

Shared letters muted; letters that set sont and st apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
sont
2 ch
st

Role in the sentence - sont and st

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sont is averb and stasymbol. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1237, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sont is recorded at frequency rank #47, classified as averb, pronounced \sɔ̃\. st is at rank #1,190, tagged as asymbol.

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 1237, this pair ranks #438,377 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sont vs st

Shared letters: st. Private to "sont": no. Private to "st": -.

"sont" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "st" · 2 letters · shape CC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sontosnt · snot · sonnt · sontt · sotn · ssont

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sont" and "st" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sont" is a verb and "st" a symbol, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sont" or "st" show up more?
"sont" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #47 in our French list, against #1,190 for "st". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "sont" and "st". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sont" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "st" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #438,377 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sont" and "st" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "st vs suu". 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 #438,377 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