soirvssrConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#268
“soir” frequency rank
#11,308
“sr” frequency rank
11576
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soir sr
Definition Déclin du jour, dernières heures de la journée. Sieur.

Where the eye mixes soir and sr

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
soir
2 ch
sr

Look-alike desk: soir vs sr

A purely visual mix-up. soir (\swaʁ\) and sr (\sjœʁ\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11576, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soir is recorded at frequency rank #268, classified as anoun, pronounced \swaʁ\. sr is at rank #11,308, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sjœʁ\.

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 11576, this pair ranks #408,649 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of soir vs sr

Shared letters: rs. Private to "soir": io. Private to "sr": -.

"soir" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "sr" · 2 letters · shape CC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soirosir · sior · soirr · sori · ssoir

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "soir" and "sr" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\swaʁ\ versus \sjœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "soir" vs "sr" - which ranks higher?
"soir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #268 in our French list, against #11,308 for "sr". 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 "soir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #408,649 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soir" and "sr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sr vs suu". 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 #408,649 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