shush vs sous, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“shush” is a verb and “sous” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,562
“shush” frequency rank: #25,213
“sous” frequency rank: 64775
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	shush	sous
Definition	To be quiet; to keep quiet.	plural of sou

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set shush and sous apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch

shush

4 ch

sous

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: shush is /ʃʊʃ/ while sous is /suːz/. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64775, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shush is recorded at frequency rank #39,562, classified as averb, pronounced /ʃʊʃ/. sous is at rank #25,213, tagged as anoun, pronounced /suːz/.

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 64775, this pair ranks #76,054 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of shush vs sous

Shared letters: su. Private to "shush": h. Private to "sous": o.

"shush" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

shush ← hsush · shhush · shsuh · shuhs · shushh · shussh · sshush · suhsh
sous ← osus · sosu · souss · ssous · suos

Frequency comparison

shush#39,562

sous#25,213

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "shush" and "sous" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "shush" is a verb and "sous" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "shush" or "sous"?

"sous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,213 in our English list, against #39,562 for "shush". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering shush vs sous

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “shush”; for a noun, it's “sous”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “shush” entry
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