Which to use
“sou” and “south” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #35,525
- “sou” frequency rank
- #392
- “south” frequency rank
- 35917
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sou | south |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | The direction towards the pole to the right-hand side of someone facing east, specifically 180°, or (on another celestial object) the direction towards the pole lying on the southern side of the invariable plane. |
Where the eye mixes sou and south
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sou runs 3 letters (CVV) against south's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses sou with south
A purely visual mix-up. sou (/suː/) and south (/saʊθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sou” sits inside “south”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35917, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sou is recorded at frequency rank #35,525, classified as anoun, pronounced /suː/. south is at rank #392, tagged as anoun, pronounced /saʊθ/.
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 35917, this pair ranks #307,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sou vs south
Shared letters: osu. Private to "sou": -. Private to "south": ht.
"sou" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "south" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- south ← osuth · sotuh · souht · southh · soutth · ssouth · suoth
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "sou" and "south" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "sou" vs "south" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "sou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "south" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #307,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sou" and "south" 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 #307,788 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.