sous vs SPS, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#29,337
“sous” frequency rank: #42,839
“SPS” frequency rank: 72176
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sous	SPS
Definition	unter (unterhalb von)	schizoide Persönlichkeitsstörung

Letter map: sous vs SPS

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

4 ch

sous

3 ch

SPS

Role in the sentence - sous and SPS

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sous is apreposition and SPSanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sous is recorded at frequency rank #29,337, classified as aprep, pronounced [su]. SPS is at rank #42,839, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced […].

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 72176, this pair ranks #395,648 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sous vs SPS

Shared letters: s. Private to "sous": ou. Private to "SPS": p.

"sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "SPS" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

sous ← osus · sosu · souss · ssous · suos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sous" for "SPS" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sous" is a preposition and "SPS" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "sous" or "SPS" show up more?

"sous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,337 in our German list, against #42,839 for "SPS". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "sous" and "SPS". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "sous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "SPS" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #395,648 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"sous" and "SPS" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs SPS". 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 #395,648 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.