sungvsswingTell them apart

Quick tell: sung is a verb, swing is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sung” is a verb and “swing” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,197
“sung” frequency rank
#18,602
“swing” frequency rank
44799
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sung swing
Definition Participe passé de sing. Qualifie un phénomène de mode né à la fin des années 30 et associé à la musique swing.

Where the eye mixes sung and swing

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

4 ch
sung
5 ch
swing

Visual trap between sung and swing

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sung is \ˈsʌŋ\ while swing is \swiŋ\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44799, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sung is recorded at frequency rank #26,197, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈsʌŋ\. swing is at rank #18,602, tagged as anadj, pronounced \swiŋ\.

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 44799, this pair ranks #207,719 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sung vs swing

Shared letters: gns. Private to "sung": u. Private to "swing": iw.

"sung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "swing" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sungsnug · ssung · sugn · sungg · sunng · usng
  • swingsiwng · sswing · swign · swingg · swinng · swnig · swwing · wsing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sung" for "swing" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sung" is a verb and "swing" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "sung" or "swing" show up more?
"swing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,602 in our French list, against #26,197 for "sung". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "sung" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "swing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #207,719 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sung" and "swing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sung 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 #207,719 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