SkivssouConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,038
“Ski” frequency rank
#10,242
“sou” frequency rank
13280
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Ski sou
Definition Ski. Monnaie d’or médiévale, dérivant du solidus romain.

Where the eye mixes Ski and sou

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
Ski
3 ch
sou

Visual trap between Ski and sou

A purely visual mix-up. Ski (\ʃiː\) and sou (\su\) 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 13280, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Ski is recorded at frequency rank #3,038, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃiː\. sou is at rank #10,242, tagged as anoun, pronounced \su\.

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 13280, this pair ranks #401,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Ski vs sou

Shared letters: s. Private to "Ski": ik. Private to "sou": ou.

"Ski" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "sou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Ski" and "sou" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʃiː\ versus \su\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "Ski" or "sou" show up more?
"Ski" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,038 in our French list, against #10,242 for "sou". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Ski" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #401,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Ski" and "sou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sou vs suu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #401,670 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