soiréevssoirsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#832
“soirée” frequency rank
#5,924
“soirs” frequency rank
6756
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soirée soirs
Definition Espace de temps depuis le déclin du jour jusqu’au moment où l’on se couche (par exemple entre 18 et 24 heures). Pluriel de soir.

Where the eye mixes soirée and soirs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
soirée
5 ch
soirs

Look-alike desk: soirée vs soirs

A purely visual mix-up. soirée (\swa.ʁe\) and soirs (\swaʁ\) 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 6756, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soirée is recorded at frequency rank #832, classified as anoun, pronounced \swa.ʁe\. soirs is at rank #5,924, tagged as anoun, pronounced \swaʁ\.

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 6756, this pair ranks #425,329 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of soirée vs soirs

Shared letters: iors. Private to "soirée": . Private to "soirs": -.

"soirée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "soirs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soirsosirs · siors · soirrs · soirss · soisr · soris · ssoirs

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "soirée" and "soirs" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\swa.ʁe\ versus \swaʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "soirée" or "soirs"?
"soirée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #832 in our French list, against #5,924 for "soirs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "soirée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soirs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #425,329 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soirée" and "soirs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs soirs". 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 #425,329 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