Which to use
“sous” is a noun and “Sousa” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,213
- “sous” frequency rank
- #38,627
- “Sousa” frequency rank
- 63840
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sous | Sousa |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of sou | A surname from Portuguese. |
Letter map: sous vs Sousa
Shared letters muted; letters that set sous and Sousa apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.
Role in the sentence - sous and Sousa
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sous is anoun and Sousaaname. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “sous” sits inside “Sousa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63840, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sous is recorded at frequency rank #25,213, classified as anoun, pronounced /suːz/. Sousa is at rank #38,627, tagged as aname.
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 63840, this pair ranks #80,810 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sous vs Sousa
Shared letters: osu. Private to "sous": -. Private to "Sousa": a.
"sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "Sousa" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sous" and "Sousa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "sous" vs "Sousa" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "sous" and "Sousa". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "sous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Sousa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #80,810 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sous" and "Sousa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sousa 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 #80,810 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.