showvssolWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,852
“show” frequency rank
#833
“sol” frequency rank
3685
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature show sol
Definition Spectacle. Cinquième note de la gamme.

Where the eye mixes show and sol

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
show
3 ch
sol

Why the eye confuses show with sol

A purely visual mix-up. show (\ʃo\) and sol (\sɔl\) 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 3685, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

show is recorded at frequency rank #2,852, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃo\. sol is at rank #833, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɔl\.

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 3685, this pair ranks #433,419 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of show vs sol

Shared letters: os. Private to "show": hw. Private to "sol": l.

"show" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "sol" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • showhsow · shhow · showw · shwo · sohw · sshow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "show" for "sol" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃo\ versus \sɔl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "show" or "sol" show up more?
"sol" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #833 in our French list, against #2,852 for "show". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "show" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sol" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #433,419 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "show" and "sol" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seok vs show". 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 #433,419 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