sobrevssobresConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#8,781
“sobre” frequency rank
#30,813
“sobres” frequency rank
39594
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sobre sobres
Definition Qui est tempérant dans le boire et dans le manger. Pluriel de sobre.

Same sound, different letters: sobre vs sobres

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. sobre runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against sobres's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
sobre
6 ch
sobres

Ear matches; page differs - sobre and sobres

This is the hard kind. sobre and sobres are pronounced identically (\sɔbʁ\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “sobre” sits inside “sobres”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39594, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sobre is recorded at frequency rank #8,781, classified as anadj, pronounced \sɔbʁ\. sobres is at rank #30,813, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɔbʁ\.

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 39594, this pair ranks #246,813 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sobre vs sobres

Shared letters: beors. Private to "sobre": -. Private to "sobres": -.

"sobre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sobres" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sobre ← osbre · sbore · sobbre · sober · sobrre · sorbe · ssobre
  • sobres ← osbres · sbores · sobbres · sobers · sobress · sobrres · sobrse · sorbes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sobre" and "sobres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\sɔbʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "sobre" vs "sobres" - which ranks higher?
"sobre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,781 in our French list, against #30,813 for "sobres". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"sobre" and "sobres" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sobre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sobres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #246,813 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sobre" and "sobres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sobres vs sofres". 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 #246,813 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