Which to use
“sour” is an adjective and “su” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,610
- “sour” frequency rank
- #8,094
- “su” frequency rank
- 16704
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sour | su |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tasting of acidity. | Alternative form of xu (“former Vietnamese currency”). |
Letter map: sour vs su
Shared letters muted; letters that set sour and su apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for sour / su
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sour is anadjective and suanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16704, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sour is recorded at frequency rank #8,610, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈsaʊə/. su is at rank #8,094, tagged as anoun.
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 16704, this pair ranks #456,075 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of sour vs su
Shared letters: su. Private to "sour": or. Private to "su": -.
"sour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "su" · 2 letters · shape CV
Known mistypes of this pair
- sour ← osur · soru · sourr · ssour · suor
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sour" for "su" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "sour" or "su" show up more?
What to do next
Pair "sour" vs "su" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "sour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "su" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #456,075 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sour" and "su" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sour vs sura". 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 #456,075 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.