solovssousWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: solo is a adjective, sous is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“solo” is an adjective and “sous” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,222
“solo” frequency rank
#29,337
“sous” frequency rank
34559
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature solo sous
Definition allein unter (unterhalb von)

Letter map: solo vs sous

Shared letters muted; letters that set solo and sous apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
solo
4 ch
sous

Role in the sentence - solo and sous

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: solo is anadjective and sousapreposition. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34559, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

solo is recorded at frequency rank #5,222, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. sous is at rank #29,337, tagged as aprep, pronounced [su].

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 34559, this pair ranks #1,660,510 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of solo vs sous

Shared letters: os. Private to "solo": l. Private to "sous": u.

"solo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • solosloo · sollo · sool · ssolo
  • sousosus · sosu · souss · ssous · suos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "solo" and "sous" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "solo" is an adjective and "sous" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "solo" vs "sous" - which ranks higher?
"solo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,222 in our German list, against #29,337 for "sous". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "solo" vs "sous" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "solo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,660,510 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "solo" and "sous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sous vs SUVs". 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 #1,660,510 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list