Which to use
“souche” and “sourde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,392
- “souche” frequency rank
- #14,569
- “sourde” frequency rank
- 23961
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | souche | sourde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Partie basse du tronc d’un arbre qui reste en terre quand l’arbre a été coupé. | Femme sourde. |
Where the eye mixes souche and sourde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. souche and sourde follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: souche vs sourde
A purely visual mix-up. souche (\suʃ\) and sourde (\suʁd\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23961, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
souche is recorded at frequency rank #9,392, classified as anoun, pronounced \suʃ\. sourde is at rank #14,569, tagged as anoun, pronounced \suʁd\.
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 23961, this pair ranks #349,460 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of souche vs sourde
Shared letters: eosu. Private to "souche": ch. Private to "sourde": dr.
"souche" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "sourde" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "souche" and "sourde" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "souche" or "sourde"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "souche" and "sourde" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "souche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sourde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #349,460 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "souche" and "sourde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "souabe vs sourde". 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 #349,460 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.