so's vs sol, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“so's” is a contraction and “sol” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,171
“so's” frequency rank: #11,466
“sol” frequency rank: 49637
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	so's	sol
Definition	So that, in order that.	In a movable-do or tonic sol-fa system: the fifth step in a scale, preceded by fa and followed by la.

Letter map: so's vs sol

Shared letters muted; letters that set so's and sol apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

so's

3 ch

sol

Role in the sentence - so's and sol

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: so's is acontraction and solanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49637, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

so's is recorded at frequency rank #38,171, classified as acontraction. sol is at rank #11,466, tagged as anoun, pronounced /sɒl/.

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 49637, this pair ranks #181,775 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of so's vs sol

Shared letters: os. Private to "so's": -. Private to "sol": l.

"so's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "sol" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "so's" and "sol" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "so's" is a contraction and "sol" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "so's" or "sol"?

"sol" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,466 in our English list, against #38,171 for "so's". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "so's" and "sol". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "so's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "sol" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #181,775 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"so's" and "sol" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "so's vs suds". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #181,775 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.