sautervssouperWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,800
“sauter” frequency rank
#11,135
“souper” frequency rank
14935
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sauter souper
Definition S’élancer en l’air, soit pour retomber au même endroit, soit pour franchir un espace. , , , Prendre le repas du soir.

Where the eye mixes sauter and souper

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. sauter and souper follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
sauter
6 ch
souper

Visual trap between sauter and souper

A purely visual mix-up. sauter (\so.te\) and souper (\su.pe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14935, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sauter is recorded at frequency rank #3,800, classified as averb, pronounced \so.te\. souper is at rank #11,135, tagged as averb, pronounced \su.pe\.

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 14935, this pair ranks #394,587 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sauter vs souper

Shared letters: ersu. Private to "sauter": at. Private to "souper": op.

"sauter" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "souper" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sauter ← asuter · satuer · sauetr · sauterr · sautre · sautter · ssauter · suater
  • souper ← osuper · sopuer · souepr · souperr · soupper · soupre · ssouper · suoper

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sauter" and "souper" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\so.te\ versus \su.pe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "sauter" or "souper"?
"sauter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,800 in our French list, against #11,135 for "souper". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sauter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "souper" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,587 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sauter" and "souper" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soler vs souper". 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 #394,587 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