suave
\sɥav\
The verdict
“suave” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #34,765 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #34,765
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Qui est d’une douceur agréable.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | suave |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \sɥav\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #34,765 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “suave” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for suave is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sɥav\. Corpus data places it at rank #34,765 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Qui est d’une douceur agréable.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for suave, with forms such as "ssuave", "suaev", and "suavve". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "SUV", "sure", "sucé", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is suave, spelled S-U-A-V-E.
Definition
- 1Qui est d’une douceur agréable.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ssuave,suaev,suavve,suvae,usave
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of suave - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
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Using “suave”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is S-U-A-V-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \sɥav\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “SUV” - see the side-by-side comparison. suave vs SUV
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.