sociétévssolisteConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#252
“société” frequency rank
#30,815
“soliste” frequency rank
31067
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature société soliste
Definition Assemblage d’humains qui sont unis par la nature ou par des lois ; commerce que les humains réunis ont naturellement les uns avec les autres. Celui, celle qui exécute un solo.

Where the eye mixes société and soliste

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. société (CVCVVCV) and soliste (CVCVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
société
7 ch
soliste

Look-alike desk: société vs soliste

A purely visual mix-up. société (\sɔ.sje.te\) and soliste (\sɔ.list\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31067, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

société is recorded at frequency rank #252, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɔ.sje.te\. soliste is at rank #30,815, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɔ.list\.

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 31067, this pair ranks #306,192 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of société vs soliste

Shared letters: iost. Private to "société": cé. Private to "soliste": el.

"société" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV  ·  "soliste" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soliste ← osliste · sloiste · soilste · soliset · solisste · solistte · solitse · solliste

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "société" for "soliste" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sɔ.sje.te\ versus \sɔ.list\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "société" or "soliste" show up more?
"société" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #252 in our French list, against #30,815 for "soliste". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "société" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soliste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #306,192 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "société" and "soliste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "solis vs soliste". 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 #306,192 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