Which to use
“solde” and “sonde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,925
- “solde” frequency rank
- #7,902
- “sonde” frequency rank
- 13827
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | solde | sonde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Paie octroyée par l’armée à un de ses membres militaires ou, par extension, un de ses employés civils. | Instrument qui sert à sonder. — Il se dit particulièrement d’un plomb attaché à une corde et dont on use pour connaître la profondeur de la mer, d’une rivière, la nature du fond, etc. |
Where the eye mixes solde and sonde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. solde and sonde follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: solde vs sonde
A purely visual mix-up. solde (\sɔld\) and sonde (\sɔ̃d\) 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 a single letter - l in “solde” becomes n in “sonde”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13827, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
solde is recorded at frequency rank #5,925, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɔld\. sonde is at rank #7,902, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɔ̃d\.
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 13827, this pair ranks #399,397 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of solde vs sonde
Shared letters: deos. Private to "solde": l. Private to "sonde": n.
"solde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "sonde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "solde" for "sonde" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "solde" or "sonde" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "solde" and "sonde" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "solde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sonde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #399,397 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "solde" and "sonde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sind vs sonde". 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 #399,397 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.