Which to use
“scour” is a verb and “sou” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,216
- “scour” frequency rank
- #35,525
- “sou” frequency rank
- 65741
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | scour | sou |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To clean, polish, or wash (something) by rubbing and scrubbing it vigorously, frequently with an abrasive or cleaning agent. | An old French copper coin equal to one twentieth of a livre or twelve deniers; one sou is to the livre as one shilling is to the pound. |
Where the eye mixes scour and sou
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. scour runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against sou's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between scour and sou
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: scour is /ˈskaʊə/ while sou is /suː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
scour is recorded at frequency rank #30,216, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈskaʊə/. sou is at rank #35,525, tagged as anoun, pronounced /suː/.
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 65741, this pair ranks #71,321 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of scour vs sou
Shared letters: osu. Private to "scour": cr. Private to "sou": -.
"scour" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "sou" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- scour ← csour · sccour · scoru · scourr · scuor · socur · sscour
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "scour" for "sou" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "scour" or "sou" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "scour" and "sou" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "scour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #71,321 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "scour" and "sou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sif vs sou". 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 #71,321 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.