sœur

/\sœʁ\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#1,380

in French word usage

Misspellings

5

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

sœur is aFrenchnoun. It means: Femme ou fille, ayant le même père et la même mère que la personne considérée. Si un seul des parents est commun, c’est une demi-sœur. Pronounced \sœʁ\. It ranks #1,380 in French word frequency. Often confused with su and sr.

Key facts for sœur
PropertyValue
Headwordsœur
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sœʁ\
Letters4
Frequency rank#1,380
Misspellings tracked5
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of sœur in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for sœur is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sœʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,380 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for sœur, with forms such as "ssœur", "suœr", and "sœru". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "su", "sr", "sur", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is sœur, spelled S-Œ-U-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Femme ou fille, ayant le même père et la même mère que la personne considérée. Si un seul des parents est commun, c’est une demi-sœur.
  2. 2
    Membre féminin d’une adelphie.
  3. 3
    Membre féminin d’une fraternité religieuse qui a prononcé des vœux.
  4. 4
    Réplique issue d’un original, d’importance égale ou moindre, parfois supérieure. Utilisé seulement pour les noms féminins.
  5. 5
    Élément (féminin) d’un ensemble.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ssœur,suœr,sœru,sœurr,œsur

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sœur

Misspelling Variants of "sœur"

ssœur5suœr4sœru4sœurr5œsur4
Misspelling Variants of "sœur"

Frequency rank: #1,380 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sœur"?
"sœur" is spelled S-Œ-U-R. The IPA pronunciation is \sœʁ\.
What does "sœur" mean?
As a noun, "sœur" means: Femme ou fille, ayant le même père et la même mère que la personne considérée. Si un seul des parents est commun, c’est une demi-sœur.
What words are commonly confused with "sœur"?
"sœur" is commonly confused with "su", "sr", "sur". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "sœur"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "sœur" is \sœʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "sœur" come from?
"sœur" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.