Which to use
“sonde” is a noun and “stone” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,902
- “sonde” frequency rank
- #8,932
- “stone” frequency rank
- 16834
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sonde | stone |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Hébété, manquant de vitalité, en particulier à la suite d’une consommation de psychotropes. |
Where the eye mixes sonde and stone
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses sonde with stone
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sonde is \sɔ̃d\ while stone is \ston\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16834, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sonde is recorded at frequency rank #7,902, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɔ̃d\. stone is at rank #8,932, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ston\.
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 16834, this pair ranks #386,049 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of sonde vs stone
Shared letters: enos. Private to "sonde": d. Private to "stone": t.
"sonde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "stone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sonde" and "stone" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "sonde" or "stone" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "sonde" and "stone" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "sonde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #386,049 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sonde" and "stone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stase vs stone". 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 #386,049 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.