Which to use
“soir” and “soirée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #268
- “soir” frequency rank
- #832
- “soirée” frequency rank
- 1100
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | soir | soirée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Déclin du jour, dernières heures de la journée. | Espace de temps depuis le déclin du jour jusqu’au moment où l’on se couche (par exemple entre 18 et 24 heures). |
Where the eye mixes soir and soirée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: soir vs soirée
A purely visual mix-up. soir (\swaʁ\) and soirée (\swa.ʁe\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “soir” sits inside “soirée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1100, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
soir is recorded at frequency rank #268, classified as anoun, pronounced \swaʁ\. soirée is at rank #832, tagged as anoun, pronounced \swa.ʁe\.
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 1100, this pair ranks #438,622 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of soir vs soirée
Shared letters: iors. Private to "soir": -. Private to "soirée": eé.
"soir" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "soirée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- soir ← osir · sior · soirr · sori · ssoir
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "soir" for "soirée" ever safe?
Which is more common, "soir" or "soirée"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "soir" and "soirée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "soir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "soirée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #438,622 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "soir" and "soirée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs soirée". 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 #438,622 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.