sachesvssouchesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“saches” and “souches” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#18,058
“saches” frequency rank
#12,867
“souches” frequency rank
30925
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saches souches
Definition Pluriel de sache. Pluriel de souche.

Where the eye mixes saches and souches

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. saches runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against souches's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
saches
7 ch
souches

Visual trap between saches and souches

A purely visual mix-up. saches (\saʃ\) and souches (\suʃ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30925, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saches is recorded at frequency rank #18,058, classified as anoun, pronounced \saʃ\. souches is at rank #12,867, tagged as anoun, pronounced \suʃ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 30925, this pair ranks #307,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of saches vs souches

Shared letters: cehs. Private to "saches": a. Private to "souches": ou.

"saches" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "souches" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • saches ← asches · sacches · sacehs · sachess · sachhes · sachse · sahces · scahes
  • souches ← osuches · socuhes · soucches · soucehs · souchess · souchhes · souchse · souhces

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saches" and "souches" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\saʃ\ versus \suʃ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "saches" vs "souches" - which ranks higher?
"souches" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,867 in our French list, against #18,058 for "saches". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "saches" and "souches" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "saches" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "souches" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #307,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saches" and "souches" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saches vs Sánchez". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #307,117 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list