soudain

\su.dɛ̃\

/\su.dɛ̃\/ adj

The verdict

“soudain” has 9 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #4,625. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#4,625
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
9
tracked misspellings
4
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est subit, prompt.

Corpus desk

Index FR-soudain · soudain · French

soudain · rank #4,625 · 9 variants · 4 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,625
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 4 pairs
  • VAR-MID 9 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH sondages

Nearest frequency peer: sondages (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « soudain »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « soudain » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

soudain vs soudan
86% similar
soudain vs souhait
71% similar
soudain vs soudaine
88% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for soudain
PropertyValue
Headwordsoudain
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\su.dɛ̃\
Letters7
Frequency rank#4,625
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs4
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « soudain »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).soudainse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « sondages » (#4,624), « stratégique » (#4,626), « socialistes » (#4,623). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « soudain » est au #4,625. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 9 spelling variants around soudain (IPA \su.dɛ̃\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #4,625 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Qui est subit, prompt.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for soudain, with forms such as "osudain", "soduain", and "souadin". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "soudan", "souhait", "soudaine", 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. The correct French form is soudain, spelled S-O-U-D-A-I-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui est subit, prompt.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how soudain appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. La soudaine irruption d’un ennemi prêt à l’offensive n’eut d’autre effet immédiat sur New York que d’accroître sa véhémence habituelle.
  2. Et puis, si aucun cataclysme soudain n’a décisivement transformé l’aspect naturel des choses, d’un seul coup, depuis un siècle, il est cependant vrai qu'au ralenti une catastrophe inéluctable impose à cette partie de la France, cette fatale loi d’impermanence.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • osudain
  • soduain
  • souadin
  • soudainn
  • soudani
  • souddain
  • soudian
  • ssoudain
  • suodain

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of soudain - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

osudain2soduain2souadin2soudainn1soudani2souddain1soudian2ssoudain1
Edit distance from "soudain"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "soudain"?
"soudain" is spelled S-O-U-D-A-I-N. The IPA pronunciation is \su.dɛ̃\.
What does "soudain" mean?
As an adjective, "soudain" means: Qui est subit, prompt.
What words are commonly confused with "soudain"?
"soudain" is commonly confused with "soudan", "souhait", "soudaine". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "soudain"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "soudain" is \su.dɛ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "soudain" come from?
"soudain" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "soudain", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list