sousvssuWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“sous” and “su” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#25,213
“sous” frequency rank
#8,094
“su” frequency rank
33307
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sous su
Definition plural of sou Alternative form of xu (“former Vietnamese currency”).

Letter map: sous vs su

Shared letters muted; letters that set sous and su apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
sous
2 ch
su

Corpus notes: sous and su

sous and su are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33307, 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/. 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 33307, this pair ranks #330,587 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sous vs su

Shared letters: su. Private to "sous": o. Private to "su": -.

"sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "su" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sousosus · sosu · souss · ssous · suos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sous" for "su" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "sous" vs "su" - which ranks higher?
"su" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,094 in our English list, against #25,213 for "sous". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "sous" and "su". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sous" 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 #330,587 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sous" and "su" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sous vs suds". 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 #330,587 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list