soudoyer

\su.dwa.je\

/\su.dwa.je\/ noun

The verdict

“soudoyer” is uncommon French (frequency #61,902 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#61,902
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Homme d’armes, mercenaire.

Corpus desk

Index FR-soudoyer · soudoyer · French

soudoyer · rank #61,902 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #61,902
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH soufflez

Nearest frequency peer: soufflez (+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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « soudoyer »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « soudoyer » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for soudoyer
PropertyValue
Headwordsoudoyer
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\su.dwa.je\
Letters8
Frequency rank#61,902
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « soudoyer » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).soudoyertombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « soufflez » (#61,903), « soufflés » (#61,904), « socios » (#61,899). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « soudoyer » est au #61,902. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

soudoyer is uncommon French at frequency #61,902 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \su.dwa.je\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Homme d’armes, mercenaire.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for soudoyer, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is soudoyer, spelled S-O-U-D-O-Y-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Homme d’armes, mercenaire.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Les gens soumis au ban et à l’arrière-ban, sont des soudoyers qui ne peuvent quitter l’armée sans permission.
  2. Dans l’armée de Tunis, on ne peut qu’entr’apercevoir la présence de soudoyers non nobles, sergents à cheval où à pied. […] Le poste de dépense qui leur est consacré est le plus important (243,000 livres tournois) : ils sont certainement plusieurs milliers, sans qu’on puisse établir la proportion de cavaliers et de fantassins. Leur recrutement s’est fait d…

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 "soudoyer"?
"soudoyer" is spelled S-O-U-D-O-Y-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \su.dwa.je\.
What does "soudoyer" mean?
As a noun, "soudoyer" means: Homme d’armes, mercenaire.
How do you pronounce "soudoyer"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "soudoyer" is \su.dwa.je\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "soudoyer" come from?
"soudoyer" 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 "soudoyer", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list