Which to use
“soies” and “sommes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #39,044
- “soies” frequency rank
- #405
- “sommes” frequency rank
- 39449
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | soies | sommes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de soie. | Pluriel de somme. |
Where the eye mixes soies and sommes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. soies runs 5 letters (CVVVC) against sommes's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between soies and sommes
A purely visual mix-up. soies (\swa\) and sommes (\sɔm\) 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 39449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
soies is recorded at frequency rank #39,044, classified as anoun, pronounced \swa\. sommes is at rank #405, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɔm\.
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 39449, this pair ranks #247,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of soies vs sommes
Shared letters: eos. Private to "soies": i. Private to "sommes": m.
"soies" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC · "sommes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "soies" and "sommes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "soies" vs "sommes" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "soies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sommes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #247,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "soies" and "sommes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs soies". 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 #247,885 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.