soudéevssoufreWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: soudée is a adjective, soufre is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“soudée” is an adjective and “soufre” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,983
“soudée” frequency rank
#16,238
“soufre” frequency rank
46221
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soudée soufre
Definition Féminin singulier de soudé. Élément chimique de numéro atomique 16 et de symbole S qui fait partie des non-métaux, plus spécifiquement des chalcogènes.

Where the eye mixes soudée and soufre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. soudée (CVVCVV) and soufre (CVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
soudée
6 ch
soufre

Look-alike desk: soudée vs soufre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: soudée is \su.de\ while soufre is \sufʁ\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46221, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soudée is recorded at frequency rank #29,983, classified as anadj, pronounced \su.de\. soufre is at rank #16,238, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sufʁ\.

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 46221, this pair ranks #196,646 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of soudée vs soufre

Shared letters: eosu. Private to "soudée": dé. Private to "soufre": fr.

"soudée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "soufre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soufre ← osufre · sofure · soufer · soufrre · sourfe · ssoufre · suofre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "soudée" and "soufre" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "soudée" is an adjective and "soufre" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "soudée" vs "soufre" - which ranks higher?
"soufre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,238 in our French list, against #29,983 for "soudée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "soudée" and "soufre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "soudée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soufre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,646 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soudée" and "soufre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soldée vs soudée". 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 #196,646 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