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PlainSpell

sole

/soʊl/adjective, noun, verb

sole is spelled S-O-L-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,365th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Sole, the name). People search “sole vs soul” about 880 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, sole means “Only” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in sole?

Letters4: S-O-L-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing19 times per million words; the 4,365th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is sole?

Sole appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,365th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Sole, the name.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce sole?

  • UK /səʊl/
  • UK [sɒʊɫ]
  • US /soʊl/

Sole has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-sole.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with sole

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

sole vs soul880 G

Sounds like: Seoul, soul (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with sole?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as sole from its last stressed vowel (/oʊl/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: lose, sloe, selo.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of sole

  • soles plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • soal
  • soling participle, present
  • soled participle, past
  • sowl

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does sole mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Only.

  2. 2

    Unmarried (especially of a woman); widowed.

  3. 3

    Unique; unsurpassed.

    The sole brilliance of this gem.

  4. 4

    With independent power; unfettered.

    A sole authority.

noun

  1. 1

    The bottom or plantar surface of the foot.

  2. 2

    The bottom of a shoe or boot.

  3. 3

    obsoleteThe foot itself.

  4. 4

    Solea solea, a flatfish of the family Soleidae; a true sole.

  5. 5

    A flatfish resembling those of the family Soleidae.

  6. 6

    The bottom of the body of a plough; the slade.

  7. 7

    The bottom of a furrow.

  8. 8

    The end section of the chanter of a set of bagpipes.

  9. 9

    A pond or pool; a dirty pond of standing water.

  10. 10

    obsoleteA wooden band or yoke put around the neck of an ox or cow in the stall.

verb

  1. 1

    To put a sole on a shoe or a boot.

  2. 2

    UKTo pull by the ears; to pull about; haul; lug.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Sole in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchunique, seul (only), célibataire (unmarried; widowed), plante, plante du pied (bottom of the foot), semelle (bottom of a shoe or boot)
Germaneinzig (only), ledig, unverheiratet, alleinstehend (unmarried; widowed), Fußsohle (bottom of the foot), Sohle (bottom of a shoe or boot)
Portugueseúnico (only), solteiro (unmarried; widowed), sola, planta do pé (bottom of the foot), solha, linguado (fish)
Spanishsolo, único (only), planta, planta del pie, planta podal (bottom of the foot), suela (bottom of a shoe or boot)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does sole come from?

From Middle English sole, soule, from Old French sol, soul (“alone”), from Latin sōlus (“alone, single, solitary, lonely”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swé (reflexive pronoun). Perhaps related to Old Latin sollus (“whole, complete”), from Proto-Indo-European *solh₂- (“safe, healthy”). More at save.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after sole