Which to use
“soli” is a noun and “sous” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,798
- “soli” frequency rank
- #115
- “sous” frequency rank
- 48913
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | soli | sous |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sous le faîtage, espace servant à engranger le foin (fenière) et où l'on peut aussi coucher, en y accédant par une échelle extérieure. | Sert à marquer la situation d’une chose à l’égard d’une autre qui est au-dessus, par-dessus, qui la couvre en totalité ou en partie. |
Where the eye mixes soli and sous
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: soli vs sous
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: soli is \sɔ.lo\ while sous is \su\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48913, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
soli is recorded at frequency rank #48,798, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɔ.lo\. sous is at rank #115, tagged as aprep, pronounced \su\.
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 48913, this pair ranks #175,044 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of soli vs sous
Shared letters: os. Private to "soli": il. Private to "sous": u.
"soli" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "sous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "soli" and "sous" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "soli" or "sous"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "soli" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #175,044 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "soli" and "sous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soli vs spi". 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 #175,044 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.