soldéevssoleWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: soldée is a verb, sole is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“soldée” is a verb and “sole” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,322
“soldée” frequency rank
#24,037
“sole” frequency rank
69359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soldée sole
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de solder. Partie inférieure creuse du sabot.  ^([1])

Where the eye mixes soldée and sole

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. soldée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against sole's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
soldée
4 ch
sole

Why the eye confuses soldée with sole

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: soldée is \sɔl.de\ while sole is \sɔl\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soldée is recorded at frequency rank #45,322, classified as averb, pronounced \sɔl.de\. sole is at rank #24,037, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɔl\.

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 69359, this pair ranks #55,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of soldée vs sole

Shared letters: elos. Private to "soldée": dé. Private to "sole": -.

"soldée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "sole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sole ← osle · sloe · soel · solle · ssole

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "soldée" and "sole" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "soldée" is a verb and "sole" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "soldée" or "sole" show up more?
"sole" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,037 in our French list, against #45,322 for "soldée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "soldée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soldée" and "sole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soldée vs soler". 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 #55,430 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